IVOV  141911   = 


BX  5937  .B83  S44  1903 
Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-1893 
Sermons  preached  in  English 
churches 


SERMONS 


SERMONS 


^^X  OF  PfWfcc>- 


[*      l\[0V141911 
IPteacJjeD  in  aBngUsb  Cburcbes 


BY    THE 


Rt.  Rev.  PHILLIPS    BROOKS,  D.D. 


NEW  YORK 
E.    P.    BUTTON    &   CO. 

31  West  Twenty-Third  St. 

1903. 


Copyright,  1883, 
By  E.  p.  DUTTON  &  CO. 


,TO 

MANY    FRIENDS    IN    ENGLAND 

IN    REMEMBRANCE   OF    THEIR    CORDIAL   WELCOME 
I    INSCRIBE  THESE   SERMONS 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  The  Pattern  in  the  Mount       .         .         .         i 

"  See  that  thou  make  all  things  according  to  the 
pattern  shewed  to  thee  in  the  mount." — Hebrews 
viii.  5, 

II.  The  Mind's  Love  for  God  .         .         .         .22 
"Jesus  said  unto  him.  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  .  .  .  with  all  thy  mind." — Matthew  xxii.  37. 

III.  The  Fire  and  the  Calf      .         .         ,         .43 

"So  they  gave  it  me:  then  I  cast  it  into  the  fire 
and  there  came  out  this  calf." — Exodus  xxxii.  24. 

IV.  Man's  Wonder  and  God's  Knowledge       .       65 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts :  If  it  be  marvellous 
in  the  eyes  of  the  remnant  of  this  people  in  these  days, 
should  it  also  be  marvellous  in  mine  eyes  ?  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts." — Zechariah  viii.  6. 

V.  In  the  Light  of  God  ....       89 

"  In  thy  light  we  shall  see  light." — Psalm  xxxvi.  9. 

VI.  The  Sufficient  Grace  OF  God  .         .         .112 

"And  he  said,  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee." — 
2  Corinthians  xii.  9. 

VII.  The  Christian  City 134 

"And  there  was  great  joy  in  that  city." — Acts  viii.  8. 


CONTENTS. 


y\  PAGE 

•^         VIII.   The  Greatness  OF  Faith    .         .         .         •     iS7 
"  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  her,  O  woman, 
great  is  thy  faith  :  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt. " 
— Matthew  xv.  28. 

IX.  <' Why  could  not  we  cast  him  out.?"         .     179 

"  Then  came  the  disciples  to  Jesus  apart,  and  said, 
Why  could  not  we  cast  him  out  ?  " — Matthew  xvii.  9. 

X,  Nature  and  Circumstances       .         .        .     200 

"  Verily  I  say  unto  you.  Among  them  that  are  born 
of  women  there  hath  not  risen  a  greater  than  John 
the  Baptist :  notwithstanding  he  that  is  least  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he." — MATTHEW 
xi.  II. 

XI.  The  Willing  Surrender   .         .         .         .221 

"Think est  thou  that   I   cannot  now  pray  to  my 

Father,  and  he  shall  presently  give  me  more  than 

■v/  twelve  legions  of  angels?     But  how  then  shall  the 

scriptures    be    fulfilled,    that    thus   it   must   be?"  — 

Matthew  xxvi.  53. 

xiL  Gamaliel 243 

"  Gamaliel,  a  doctor  of  the  law,  had  in  reputation 
among  all  the  people. " — Acts  v.  34. 


a 


XIII.  The  Gift  and  its  Return  ....     265 

' '  For   with   what    measure   ye   mete,  it   shall   be 
measured  to  you  again.  ' — Matthew  vii.  2. 

XIV.  "  Your  Joy  no  Man  taketh  from  you  "      .     288 
"  And  your  joy  no  man  taketh  from  you." — ^JOHN  xvi.  22. 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.* 

**  See  that  thou  make  all  things  according  to  the  pattern  shewed 
to  thee  in  the  mount." — Hebrews  viii.  5, 

The  elements  which  make  a  perfect  work  are 
two — a  perfect  workman,  and  a  perfect  pattern. 
A  perfect  workman  must  have  perfect  faithfulness 
and  perfect  skill  ;  and  so,  to  make  any  accomplish- 
ment entirely  complete,  faithfulness  and  skill  must 
join  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  perfect  plan.  It  is 
very  much  like  the  casting  of  some  great  work 
in  metal.  There  is  skill  in  the  mixing  of  the 
elements.  Faithfulness  is  like  the  pervading  heat 
which  keeps  the  whole  mass  fluid.  But  the  plan 
or  pattern  of  the  work  is  like  the  mould  into 
which  the  well-mixed  and  molten  metal  must  be 
poured,  that  it  may  get  form  and  value,  and  not 
remain  a  merely  shapeless  mass. 

There  are,  then,  two  great  reasons  why  men's 

*  Preached  at  St.  Botolph's  Church,  Boston,  Lincolnshire, 
Sunday  morning,  2d  July  1882  ;  and  at  the  Chapel  Royal,  Savoy, 
London,  Sunday  morning,  20th  May  1883. 

&  B 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


works  are  failures  :  one  is  the  lack  of  the  per- 
sonal qualities  of  faithfulness  and  skill  in  the 
worker  ;  the  other  is  the  absence  of  a  pattern,  or 
the  presence  of  a  wrong  pattern,  in  which  the 
faithfulness  and  skill  take  shape.  The  first  kind 
of  failure  is  common  enough.  Plenty  of  people 
there  are  who,  with  most  perfect  plans  of  life,  are 
so  unfaithful  or  unskilful  that  their  lives  come  to 
nothing.  But  the  second  kind  of  failure  also  is 
abundant.  The  world  is  full  of  men  who,  with 
great  faithfulness  and  skill  are  doing  little,  because 
the  plan,  the  standard,  the  pattern  of  their  life  is 
weak  or  wrong.  To  them,  and  of  them,  let  me 
speak  to-day,  using  for  my  text  these  words  out 
of  the  old  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  :  "  See  that  thou 
make  all  things  according  to  the  pattern  shewed 
to  thee  in  the  mount." 

The  warning  had  been  given  to  Moses  when 
he  was  about  to  make  the  Tabernacle.  The 
leader  of  the  Jews  was  full  of  faithfulness,  and  all 
the  skill  of  all  the  people  was  at  his  command 
He  could  make  what  he  would  ;  but  never  in  all 
the  world  before  had  there  been  such  a  tabernacle 
as  he  was  now  to  build.  There  was  no  precedent 
or  accepted  rule.  And  so  we  read  in  Exodus 
that  God  called  him  up  into  a  high  mountain,  and 
there,  in  some  mysterious  way,  He  gave  His 
servant  a  description  of  the  Tabernacle  which  He 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


wanted  him  to  build.  He  showed  it  to  him  in 
elaborate  detail,  and  when,  upon  the  seventh  day, 
Moses  came  down  from  Mount  Sinai,  the  unbuilt 
Tabernacle  was  already  in  existence  in  his  mind, 
as  it  had  been  already  before  in  existence  in  the 
mind  of  God.  Not  yet  had  it  any  material  exist- 
ence ;  but  its  idea  was  there.  It  was  not  visible 
or  tangible.  The  gold,  the  silver,  and  the  brass, 
the  blue  and  purple  and  scarlet,  the  fine  linen 
and  goats'  hair,  the  rams'  skins  dyed  red,  the 
brilliant  lamps  and  carved  cherubs  shone  as  yet 
in  no  earthly  sunshine  ;  the  fragrance  of  the  spices 
floated  on  no  earthly  air  ;  the  curtains  waved  in 
no  terrestrial  breezes  ;  the  stakes  which  held  the 
structure  had  been  driven  in  no  field  of  our  com- 
mon ground  ;  it  was  not  yet  in  being  as  a  material 
fact,  a  bright,  strange  apparition,  such  as  by  and 
by  moved  with  the  host  of  the  Israelites  and  filled 
the  tribes  of  their  enemies  with  wonder.  But  yet, 
in  a  true  sense,  it  was — it  had  existence,  when 
God  had  opened  the  chamber  of  His  will  in  which 
the  idea  of  the  unbuilt  Tabernacle  already  stood 
complete,  and  showed  it  to  His  servant.  All  that 
afterwards  took  place,  all  the  slow  building  of  the 
Tabernacle  by  the  offerings  of  the  people,  was  but 
the  transference  from  the  region  of  ideas  to  the 
region  of  realities  of  that  which  existed  already  in 
the  mind  of  God. 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT, 


We  have  only  to  enlarge  the  conception  which 
is  in  this  story  and  to  make  it  general,  and  we 
come  at  once  to  one  of  the  loftiest  and  most  in- 
spiring thoughts  of  human  life.  As  the  old 
Tabernacle,  before  it  was  built,  existed  in  the 
mind  of  God,  so  all  the  unborn  things  of  life,  the 
things  which  are  to  make  the  future,  are  already 
living  in  their  perfect  ideas  in  Him,  and  when  the 
future  comes,  its  task  will  be  to  match  those  divine 
ideas  with  their  material  realities,  to  translate  into 
the  visible  and  tangible  shapes  of  terrestrial  life 
the  facts  which  already  have  existence  in  the  per- 
fect mind.  Surely  in  the  very  statement  of  such 
a  thought  of  life  there  is  something  which  ennobles 
and  dignifies  our  living.  It  takes  something  of 
this  dreadful  extemporaneousness  and  superficial- 
ness  and  incoherence  out  of  our  life.  The  things 
which  come  to  pass  here  in  the  world  are  not 
mere  volunteer  efforts  of  man's  enterprise,  not 
self-contained  ventures  which  are  responsible  to 
nothing  and  to  no  one  but  themselves.  For  each 
of  them  there  is  an  idea  present  already  in  the 
thought  of  God,  a  pattern  of  what  each  in  its 
purest  perfection  is  capable  of  being.  Out  of  the 
desire  to  realise  that  idea  must  come  the  highest 
inspiration.  In  the  degree  to  which  it  has  realised 
that  idea  must  be  the  standard  of  judgment  of 
every  work  of  man.     To-day  begins  a  baby's  life. 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


A  child  is  bom  into  the  world  this  Sunday 
morning.  What  shall  we  say  j.bout  that  child's 
unlived  life  ?  No  man  can  tell  what  it  will  be. 
Its  lessons  are  unlearned,  its  tasks  untried,  its 
discoveries  unmade,  its  loves  unloved,  its  growth 
entirely  ungrown,  as  the  little  new-born  problem 
lies  unsolved  on  this  the  first  day  of  its  life.  Is 
that  all  ?  Is  there  nowhere  in  the  universe  any 
picture  of  what  that  child's  life  ought  to  be,  and 
may  be  ?  Surely  there  is.  If  God  is  that  child's 
Father,  then  in  the  Father's  mind,  in  God's  mind, 
there  must  surely  be  a  picture  of  what  that  child 
with  his  peculiar  faculties  and  nature  may  become 
in  the  completeness  of  his  life.  Years  hence, 
when  that  baby  of  to-day  has  grown  to  be  the 
man  of  forty,  the  real  question  of  his  life  will 
be,  what  ?  Not  the  questions  which  his  fellow- 
citizens  of  that  remote  day  will  be  asking,  What 
reputation  has  he  won  ?  What  money  has  he 
earned  ?  Not  even.  What  learning  has  he  gained  ? 
But,  How  far  has  he  been  able  to  translate  into 
the  visible  and  tangible  realities  of  a  life  that 
idea  which  was  in  God's  mind  on  that  day  in  the 
old  year  when  he  was  born  ?  How  does  the 
tabernacle  which  he  has  built  correspond  with  the 
pattern  which  is  in  the  mount  ?  Ah,  somewhere 
in  the  universe  of  God,  dear  friends — if  not  among 
our  brethren  beside  us,  i'  not  by  our  own  hearts — 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


somewhere  in  the  universe,  that  question  is  being 
asked  to-day  of  every  one  of  us  who  has  grown 
up  and  left  his  youth  behind  him.  Moses  may, 
if  he  will,  go  on  and  build  a  tabernacle  to  suit 
himself,  and  as  its  self-willed  architecture  rises,  the 
people  may  gather  around  it  and  call  it  wonderful, 
and  praise  the  builder's  genius,  but  God's  eye  is 
judging  it  all  the  time  simply  by  one  standard, 
simply  by  its  conformity  or  non-conformity  to  the 
pattern  which,  long  before  the  hewing  of  the  first 
beam  or  the  weaving  of  the  first  curtain,  existed 
in  the  mount. 

All  this  is  true  not  merely  of  a  whole  life  as  a 
whole,  but  of  each  single  act  or  enterprise  of  life. 
We  have  not  thought  richly  or  deeply  enough 
about  any  undertaking  unless  we  have  thought  of 
it  as  an  attempt  to  put  into  the  form  of  action 
that  which  already  has  existence  in  the  idea  of 
God.  You  start  upon  your  profession,  and  your 
professional  career  in  its  perfect  conception  shines 
already  in  God's  sight.  Already  before  Him 
there  is  the  picture  of  the  good  physician,  the 
broad-minded  merchant,  the  fair-minded  lawyer, 
the  heroic  minister,  which  you  may  be.  You  set 
yourself  down  to  some  hard  struggle  with  tempta- 
tion, and  already  in  the  fields  of  God's  knowledge 
you  are  walking  as  possible  victor,  clothed  in 
white  and  with  the  crown  of  victory  upon  your 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


head.  You  build  your  house,  and  found  your 
home.  It  is  an  attempt  to  realise  the  picture  of 
purity,  domestic  peace,  mutual  inspiration  and 
mutual  comfort,  which  God  sees  already.  Your 
friendship  which  begins  to  shape  itself  to-day  out 
of  your  intercourse  with  your  companion  has  its 
pattern  in  the  vast  treasury  of  God's  conceptions 
of  what  man,  with  perfect  truthfulness  and  perfect 
devotion,  may  be  to  his  brother  man.  It  is  not 
vulgar  fate  and  destiny  ;  it  is  not  a  mere  settle 
ment  beforehand  by  God's  foreknowledge  of  what 
each  man  must  be  and  do,  so  that  he  cannot 
escape.  The  man's  will  is  still  free.  The  man 
may  falsify  God's  picture  of  him,  he  certainly  will 
fall  short  of  it  ;  but  it  is  the  essential  truth  of  the 
Father  comprehending  all  his  children's  lives 
within  His  own,  the  infinite  nature  containing  the 
finite  natures  in  itself  and  holding  in  itself  their 
standard. 

The  distinction  between  ideas  and  forms  is  one 
which  all  men  need  to  know,  which  many  men  so 
often  seem  to  miss.  The  idea  takes  shape  in  the 
form,  the  form  expresses  the  idea.  The  form, 
without  the  idea  behind  it,  is  thin  and  hard  The 
form,  continually  conscious  of  its  idea,  becomes 
rich,  deep,  and  elastic.  He  who  once  gets  the 
sight  into  that  world  of  ideas  which  lies  unseen 
behind  the  world  of  forms  never  can  lose  sight  of 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


it  again,  never  can  be  content  with  any  act  of  his 
until  he  has  carried  it  into  that  world  and  matched 
it  with  its  idea.  To  the  man  who  is  trying  to  dc 
just  or  generous  things,  but  who  is  perpetually 
conscious  of  how  imperfect  is  the  justice  or  the 
generosity  of  the  things  he  does,  it  is  a  constant 
incentive  and  comfort  to  be  sure  that  somewhere, 
in  God,  there  is  the  perfect  type  and  pattern  of 
the  thing  of  which  he  fails.  That  certainty  at 
once  preserves  the  loftiness  of  his  standard  and 
saves  him  from  despair.  This  is  the  power  of 
ideality,  of  the  unfailing  sight  of  the  perfect  ideas 
behind  the  imperfect  form  of  things. 

If  all  that  I  have  said  be  true,  then  it  would 
seem  as  if  there  ought  to  be  in  the  world  three 
kinds  of  men — the  men  of  forms  ;  the  men  of 
limited  ideals,  or  of  ideals  which  are  not  the 
highest ;  and  the  men  of  unlimited  ideals,  or  the 
highest  ideals,  which  are  the  ideals  of  God.  And 
three  such  kinds  of  men  there  are,  very  distinct 
and  easy  of  discovery.  First,  there  are  the  men  of 
forms,  the  men  who,  in  all  their  self-questionings 
about  what  they  ought  to  do,  and  in  all  their 
judgments  about  what  they  have  done,  never  get 
beyond  the  purely  formal  standards  which  proceed 
either  from  the  necessity  of  their  conditions  or 
from  the  accepted  precedents  of  other  people. 
They  never  get  into  the  regions  of  ideas  at  all. 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


How  many  such  men  there  are  !  To  them  the 
question  of  their  business  life  never  comes  up  so 
high  as  to  mean,  "  What  is  the  best  and  loftiest 
way  in  which  it  is  possible  for  this  business  of 
mine  to  be  done  ?"  It  never  gets  higher  than  to 
mean,  *'  How  can  I  best  support  myself  by  my 
business?"  or  else,  "What  are  the  rules  and  ways 
of  business  which  are  most  accepted  in  the  busi- 
ness world  ? "  To  such  men  the  question  of 
religion  never  becomes  :  "  What  are  the  intrinsic 
and  eternal  relations  between  the  Father  God  and 
man  the  child?"  but  only,  "By  what  religious 
observances  can  a  man  get  into  heaven  ?"  or  else, 
"  What  is  the  most  current  religion  of  my  fellow- 
men  ?  "  There  is  no  unseen  type  of  things  after 
the  pattern  of  which  the  seen  deed  must  be  shaped. 
Every  deed  is  single  and  arbitrary  and  special,  a 
thing  done  and  to  be  judged,  not  by  its  conformity 
to  some  eternal  standard  of  what  such  a  deed 
ought  to  be,  but  simply  by  its  fitness  to  produce 
results.  Such  a  man  judges  a  deed  like  a  hatchet, 
solely  by  whether  it  will  split  wood.  The  deed 
no  more  than  the  hatchet  has  any  true  character, 
any  conformity  to  or  departure  from  an  essential 
and  eternal  type.  Of  course  no  visions  haunt  a 
man  like  that.  He  dreams  no  dreams  of  finer 
purity  and  loftiness  which  might  have  given  a 
more  subtle  and  divine  success  to  acts  of  his  which 


lO  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  L 

the  world  calls  successful.  He  lives  in  a  low 
self-content,  and  knows  no  pain  or  disappointment 
at  his  actions  unless  his  act  fails  of  its  visible 
result,  or  unless  other  men  condemn  the  method 
in  which  he  happens  to  have  acted. 

It  would  be  sad,  indeed,  to  think  that  there  is 
any  man  here  to-day  who  has  not  at  least  some- 
times in  his  life  got  a  glimpse  into  a  richer  and 
fuller  and  more  interesting  sort  of  life  than  this. 
There  is  a  second  sort  of  man  who  does  distinctly 
ask  himself  whether  his  deed  is  what  it  ought  to 
be.  He  is  not  satisfied  with  asking  whether  it 
works  its  visible  result  or  not,  whether  other 
men  praise  it  or  not.  There  is  another  question 
still,  Does  it  conform  to  what  he  knew  before 
he  undertook  it  that  it  ought  to  be  ?  If  it  does 
not,  however  it  may  seem  successful,  however 
men  may  praise  it,  the  doer  of  the  deed  turns 
off  from  it  in  discontent.  If  it  does,  no  matter 
how  it  seems  to  fail,  no  matter  how  men  blame 
it,  he  thanks  God  for  it  and  is  glad.  Here  is 
a  true  idealism  ;  here  is  a  man  with  an  unseen 
pattern  and  standard  for  his  work.  He  lives  a 
loftier,  and  likewise  a  more  unquiet  life.  He  goes 
his  way  with  his  vision  before  his  eyes.  "  I  know 
something  of  what  this  piece  of  work  ought  to 
have  been,"  he  says,  "  therefore  I  cannot  be  satis- 
fied with  it  as  it  is."      What  is  the  defect  of  such 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  II 


an  idealism  as  that  ?  It  is,  that  as  yet  the  idea 
conies  only  from  the  man's  own  self.  Therefore, 
although  it  lies  farther  back  than  the  mere  form, 
it  does  not  lie  entirely  at  the  back  of  everything. 
It  is  not  final  ;  it  shares  the  incompleteness  of  the 
man  from  whom  it  springs.  It  may  be  born  of 
prejudice  and  selfishness.  It  is  the  source  very 
often  of  bigotry  and  uncharitableness  and  super- 
stition. These  are  not  seldom  the  fruits  of  narrow 
ideality.  The  man  of  no  ideas  is  not  a  bigot. 
The  man  of  largest  ideas  has  outgrown  bigotry. 
It  is  the  man  who  asks  for  principles,  the  man 
who  seeks  to  conform  his  life  to  some  conception 
of  what  life  ought  to  be,  but  who  seeks  his  pattern 
no  higher  and  no  deeper  than  his  own  convictions, 
it  is  he  who  stands  in  danger  of,  and  very  often 
falls  into  narrowness  and  pride  and  the  insolent, 
uncharitable  demand  that  all  men  shall  shape 
their  lives  in  the  same  form  as  his. 

Therefore  it  is  that  something  more  is  needed, 
and  that  only  the  third  man's  life  is  wholly  satis- 
factory. I  said  that  he  not  merely  looked  for  an 
idea  to  which  he  wanted  to  conform  his  life,  but 
he  looked  for  that  idea  in  God.  Literally  and 
truly  he  believes  that  the  life  he  is  to  live,  the  act 
he  is  to  do,  lies  now,  a  true  reality,  already  existent 
and  present,  in  the  mind  of  God  ;  and  his  object, 
his  privilege,  i*^  not  simply  to  see  how  he  can  live 


la  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  1. 

his  life  in  the  way  which  will  look  best  or  produce 
the  most  brilliant  visible  result,  not  simply  to  see 
how  he  can  best  carry  out  his  own  personal  idea 
of  what  is  highest  and  best,  but  how  he  can  most 
truly  reproduce  on  earth  that  image  of  this  special 
life  or  action  which  is  in  the  perfect  mind.  This 
is  the  way  in  which  he  is  to  make  all  things  ac- 
cording to  the  pattern  which  is  in  the  mount. 

Does  it  sound  at  first  as  if  there  were  some- 
thing almost  slavish  in  such  a  thought  as  that  ? 
He  who  thinks  so  has  not  begun  to  apprehend 
the  essential  belonging  together  of  the  life  of  God 
and  the  life  of  every  man.  For  man  to  accept 
the  pattern  of  his  living  absolutely  from  any  other 
being  besides  God  in  all  the  universe  would  be  for 
him  to  sacrifice  his  self  and  to  lose  his  originality. 
But  for  man  to  find  and  simply  reproduce  the 
picture  of  his  life  which  is  in  God  is  for  him  not 
to  sacrifice  but  to  find  his  self  For  the  man  is 
in  God.  The  ideal,  the  possible  perfection  of 
everything  that  he  can  do  or  be,  is  there  in  God  ; 
and  to  be  original  for  any  man  is  not  to  start 
aside  with  headlong  recklessness  and  do  what 
neither  brother- man,  nor  God  dreamed  of  our 
doing  ;  but  it  is  to  do  with  filial  loyalty  the  act 
which,  because  God  is  God,  a  being  such  as  we 
are  ought  to  do  under  the  circumstances,  in  the 
conditions  in  which  we  stand.      Because  no  other 


L  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  13 

being  ever  was  or  ever  will  be  just  the  same  as 
you,  and  because  precisely  the  same  conditions 
never  before  have  been  and  never  will  be  grouped 
about  any  other  mortal  life  as  are  grouped  around 
yours,  therefore  for  you  cO  do  and  be  what  you, 
with  your  own  nature  in  your  own  circumstances, 
ought  in  the  judgment  of  the  perfect  mind  to  do 
and  be,  that  is  originality  for  you. 

What  quiet  independence,  what  healthy  humi- 
lity, what  confident  hope  there  must  be  in  this  man 
who  thus  goes  up  to  God  to  get  the  pattern  of  his 
living.  To-morrow  morning  to  that  man  there 
comes  a  great  overwhelming  sorrow.  Bereave- 
ment breaks  open  his  house's  guarded  door,  and 
the  unbroken  circle  is  shattered  at  what  seemed 
its  dearest  and  safest  spot.  The  man  looks  about 
and  questions  himself — What  shall  he  do,  what 
shall  he  be  in  this  new  terrible  life,  terrible  not 
least  because  of  its  awful  newness,  which  has  burst 
upon  him  ?  Where  shall  he  find  the  pattern  for 
his  new  necessity  ?  Of  course  he  may  look  about 
and  copy  the  forms  with  which  the  world  at  large 
greets  and  denotes  its  sorrow,  the  decent  dreadful 
conventionalities  of  grief  He  may  alter  his  dress 
and  moderate  his  walk  and  tone,  and  even  hide 
himself  from  sight,  and  so  give  all  his  pain  its 
proper  form.  That  does  not  satisfy  him.  The 
world  acknowledges  that  he  has  borne  his  grief 


14  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  L 

most  properly,  but  he  is  not  satisfied.  Then, 
behind  all  that,  he  may  reason  it  over  with  him- 
self, think  out  what  death  means,  make  his 
philosophy,  decide  how  a  man  ought  to  behave  in 
the  terrible  shipwreck  of  his  hopes.  That  is  a 
better  thing  by  all  means  than  the  other.  But 
this  man  does  something  more.  The  pattern  of 
his  new  life  is  not  in  the  world.  It  is  not  in  him- 
self. It  is  in  God.  He  goes  up  to  find  it.  There 
is,  lying  in  God's  mind,  an  image  of  him,  this  very 
man,  with  this  very  peculiar  nature  of  his,  of  him 
bearing  this  particular  sorrow,  and  trained  by  it 
into  a  peculiar  strength,  which  can  belong  to  no 
other  man  in  all  the  world.  That  image  is  a 
reality  in  God's  soul  before  it  becomes  a  visible 
thing  in  the  man's  soul  living  on  the  earth.  To  get 
up,  then,  into  God,  and  find  that  image  of  his 
grieved  and  sorrowing  life,  and  then  come  back 
and  shape  his  life  after  it  patiently  and  cheerfully, 
that  is  the  struggle  of  the  Christian  idealist  in  his 
sorrow,  of  the  man  who  tries  to  make  all  things 
according  to  the  pattern  which  is  in  the  mount. 
Can  we  not  see  what  quiet  independence,  what 
healthy  humility,  what  confident  hope  there  must 
be  in  t«cit  man's  struggle  to  live  out  through  his 
sorrow  the  new  life  which  his  sorrow  has  made 
possible  ? 

But  now  it  is  quite  time  for  us  to  ask  anothei 


L  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  l$ 

question.  Suppose  that  all  which  we  have  said 
is  true  ;  suppose  that  there  is  such  a  pattern  of 
the  truest  life,  and  of  each  truest  act  of  every 
man  lying  in  God's  mind,  how  shall  the  man 
know  what  that  pattern  is  ?  We  can  see  into 
what  a  mockery  our  whole  truth  might  be  mis- 
read. "  Yes,"  one  might  say,  "  God  has  in  Himself 
the  true  idea  of  you,  but  what  of  that  ?  How 
will  that  help  you  ?  You  cannot  go  up  into  His 
mind  to  find  it  there.  You  must  go  on  still 
blundering  and  guessing,  only  trembling  to  know 
that  at  the  last  you  will  be  judged  by  a  standard 
of  which  you  could  never  get  a  sight  while  you 
were  working  at  your  life.  Look  up,  poor  soul, 
out  of  the  valley  and  know  that  on  the  top  of 
yonder  shining  mountain  lies  folded  safe  the 
secret  of  your  life,  the  oracle  which  would,  if  you 
could  read  it,  solve  all  your  mysteries  and  tell 
you  just  exactly  how  you  ought  to  live.  Look 
up  out  of  the  valley  and  know  that  it  is  there  ; 
and  then  turn  back  again  into  the  valley,  for  in 
the  valley  is  the  home  where  you  must  live,  and 
you  can  never  read  the  oracle  which  you  know  is 
there  upon  the  mountain -top."  What  mockery 
could  there  be  like  that  ?  How  must  the  poor 
man  bend  his  head  like  a  beast  and  go  plodding 
on,  refusing  to  look  at,  trying  to  forget,  the  moun- 
tain where  his  secret  lay,  and  where  he  must  not 


l6  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  ^. 

climb !  Is  that  the  fate  of  man  who  knows  that 
in  God  lies  the  image  and  the  pattern  of  his  life  ? 
It  might  seem  to  be,  it  has  very  often  seemed  to 
be,  but  it  can  never  really  be  to  any  one  who 
really  knows  and  believes  in  the  Incarnation,  the 
life  of  the  God-Man  among  men.  Do  you  not 
see  ?  Is  not  Christ  the  mountain  up  into  which 
the  believer  goes,  and  in  which  he  finds  the  divine 
idea  of  himself  As  a  mountain  seems  to  be  the 
meeting-place  of  earth  and  heaven,  the  place 
where  the  bending  skies  meet  the  aspiring  planet, 
the  place  where  the  sunshine  and  the  cloud  keep 
closest  company  with  the  granite  and  the  grass  : 
so  Christ  is  the  meeting -place  of  divinity  and 
humanity  ;  He  is  at  once  the  condescension  of 
divinity  and  the  exaltation  of  humanity;  and  man 
wanting  to  know  God's  idea  of  man,  any  man 
wanting  to  know  God's  idea  of  him,  must  go  up 
into  Christ,  and  he  will  find  it  there. 

I  would  not  have  that  sound  to  you  fanciful 
and  vague,  for  I  am  sure  that  there  is  in  that 
statement  the  most  sure  and  practical  of  truths. 
It  was  so  in  the  old  days  of  the  visible  incarna- 
tion. See  how,  when  Jesus  walked  on  earth,  the 
men  and  women  who  were  with  Him  there  were 
always  climbing  up  into  the  mountain  of  His 
life,  and  seeing  there  what  God's  idea  of  their 
lives  was.     A  young  man,  puzzled  with  matching 


L  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  17 

commandments,  weary  of  wondering  which  little 
corner  of  duty  he  should  make  his  own,  came  up 
to  Christ,  came  up  into  Christ,  and  asked,  "  Lord, 
which  is  the  great  commandment  ?  "  and  instantly, 
as  Christ  looked  at  him  and  answered  him,  the 
man  saw  a  new  vision  of  himself,  a  vision  of  a 
life  filled  with  a  passionate  love  of  the  Holy  One, 
and  so  he  went  back  determined  not  to  rest  until 
he  had  attained  all  holiness.  If  he  came  down 
from  Christ  a  larger  man,  giving  his  whole  life 
thenceforth  to  the  attainment  of  the  love  of  God, 
and  letting  all  duty  do  itself  out  of  the  abundance 
of  that  love,  that  was  the  way  in  which  he  did 
all  things  according  to  the  pattern  which  had 
been  shewed  to  him  on  the  mount.  Into  that 
mountain  of  the  Lord  went  up  John  Boanerges,  to 
see  God's  idea  of  him  as  the  man  of  love  ;  and 
fickle-hearted  Peter,  to  see  God's  idea  of  him  as 
the  steadfast  rock ;  and  trembling  Mary  Mag- 
dalene, to  know  herself  beloved  and  forgiven. 
Nay,  up  that  mountain  went  even  Judas  Iscariot, 
far  enough  to  catch  sight  of  God's  Judas,  of  the 
man  resisting  temptation  and  loyally  faithful  to 
his  Lord.  Up  that  mountain  went  Pontius  Pilate, 
and  for  a  moment  we  can  see  flash  before  his  eyes 
the  ideal  of  himself,  the  true  Roman,  the  true 
man,  God's  Pilate,  brave  and  honest,  unscared  by 
shouting    Jews  or  frowning    Csesar,  standing    by 

C 


l8  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


his  convictions  and  protecting  his  helpless  prisoner 
against  His  brutal  enemies.  Every  man  who  came 
to  Jesus  saw  in  Him  the  image  of  his  own  true 
self,  the  thing  that  he  might  be  and  ought  to  be. 
Hundreds  of  them  were  not  ready  for  the  sight, 
and  turned  and  went  their  way,  to  be  not  what 
they  might  be,  nor  what  they  ought  to  be,  but 
what  they  basely  chose  to  be.  But  none  the  less 
the  pattern  had  been  shewed  to  them  in  the  mount. 
And  so  it  has  been  ever  since.  All  kinds  of 
men  have  found  their  ideals  in  Jesus.  Entering 
into  Him,  the  timid  soul  has  seen  a  vision  of  itself 
all  clothed  in  bravery,  and  known  in  an  instant 
that  to  be  brave  and  not  to  be  cowardly  was 
its  proper  life.  The  missionary  toiling  in  the 
savage  island,  and  thinking  his  whole  life  a  failure, 
has  gone  apart  some  night  into  his  hut  and 
climbed  up  into  Christ,  and  seen  with  perfect 
sureness,  though  with  most  complete  amaze- 
ment, that  God  counted  his  life  a  great  success, 
and  so  has  gone  out  once  more  singing  to  his 
glorious  work.  Martyrs  on  the  night  before  their 
agony  ;  reformers  hesitating  at  their  tasks  ; 
scholars  wondering  whether  the  long  self-denial 
would  be  worth  their  while  ;  fathers  and  mothers, 
teachers  and  preachers  whose  work  bad  grown 
monotonous  and  wearisome,  all  of  these  going  to 
Christ  have   found  themselves  in  Him,  have  seen 


L  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  19 

the  nobleness  and  privilege  of  their  hard  lives, 
and  have  come  out  from  their  communion  with 
Him  to  live  their  lives  as  they  had  seen  those 
lives  in  Him,  glorious  with  the  perpetual  sense  of 
the  privilege  of  duty,  and  worthy  of  the  best  and 
most  faithful  work  which  they  could  give. 

Cannot  you  go  to  Christ  to-day  and  find  the 
idea  of  yourself  in  Him.  It  is  certainly  there. 
In  Christ's  thought  at  this  moment  there  is  a 
picture  of  you  which  is  perfectly  distinct  and  sepa- 
rate and  clear.  It  is  not  a  vague  blurred  picture 
of  a  good  man  with  all  the  special  colours  washed 
away,  with  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from  any 
other  good  man  in  the  town.  It  is  a  picture  of 
you.  It  is  you  with  your  own  temptations  con- 
quered, and  your  own  type  of  goodness,  different 
from  any  other  man's  in  all  the  world,  in  all  the 
ages,  perfectly  attained.  If  you  give  up  your  life 
to  serving  and  loving  Christ,  one  of  the  blessings 
of  your  consecration  of  yourself  to  Him,  will  be, 
that  in  Him  there  will  open  to  you  this  pattern  of 
yourself.  You  will  see  your  possible  self  as  He 
sees  it,  and  then  life  will  have  but  one  purpose 
and  wish  for  you,  which  will  be  that  you  may 
realise  that  idea  of  yourself  which  you  have  seen 
in  Him. 

This,  then,  is  the  great  truth  of  Christ.  The 
treasury   of  life,   yoi  r   life  and   mine,  the  life  of 


THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT. 


every  man  and  every  woman,  however  different 
they  are  from  one  another,  they  are  all  in  Him, 
In  Him  there  is  the  perfectness  of  every  occupa- 
tion :  the  perfect  trading,  the  perfect  housekeeping, 
the  perfect  handicraft,  the  perfect  school  teaching, 
they  are  all  in  Him.  In  Him  lay  the  complete- 
ness of  that  incomplete  act  which  you  did  yester- 
day. In  Him  lay  the  possible  holiness  of  that 
which  you  made  actual  sin.  In  Him  lies  the 
absolute  purity  and  loftiness  of  that  worship  which 
we  this  morning  have  stained  so  with  impurity 
and  baseness.  To  go  to  Him  and  get  the  perfect 
idea  of  life,  and  of  every  action  of  life,  and  then 
to  go  forth,  and  by  His  strength  fulfil  it,  that  is 
the  New  Testament  conception  of  a  strong  suc- 
cessful life.  How  simple  and  how  glorious  it  is ! 
We  are  like  Moses,  then, — only  our  privilege 
is  so  much  more  than  his.  We  are  like  a  Moses 
who  at  any  moment,  whenever  the  building  of  the 
tabernacle  flagged  and  hesitated,  was  able  to  turn 
and  go  up  into  the  mountain  and  look  once  more 
the  pattern  in  the  face,  and  come  down  strong, 
ambitious  for  the  best,  and  full  of  hope.  So  any 
moment  we  may  turn  from  the  poor  reality  to  the 
great  ideal  of  our  own  lives,  which  is  in  Christ, 
with  one  earnest  question,  "  Lord,  what  wouldst 
Thou  have  me  to  be  ?  "  We  may  pierce  through 
the  clouds  and  reach  the  sumnjit,  and  there,  see- 


1.  THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT.  21 

ing  His  vision  of  our  possibilities,  be  freed  at  once 
from  our  brethren's  tyranny,  and  from  our  own 
content  and  sluggishness,  and  set  to  work  with  all 
our  might  to  fulfil  God's  image  of  our  lives,  to  be 
all  that  He  has  shown  us  that  it  is  possible  for  us 
to  be,  to  make  all  thin^.  .:i  these  valley  lives  ot 
ours  after  the  pattern  shewed  to  us  in  the  mount 


II 

THE  MIND'S  LOVE  FOR  GOD.* 

•*  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  .  •  , 
with  all  thy  mind." — Matthew  xxii.  37. 

This  is  only  part  of  a  verse.  It  is  a  fragment  of 
the  injunction  in  which  Christ  laid  down  to  His 
disciples  the  whole  range  and  compass  of  the 
Christian  life.  In  words  which  must  have  seemed 
to  each  of  them,  according  to  his  character  and 
mood,  either  the  imposition  of  a  duty  or  the  offer 
of  a  privilege  which  was  large  enough  to  cover 
and  fill  all  their  lives,  their  Lord  had  said  to 
them,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
mind.  This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment. 
And  the  second  is  like  unto  it.  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  The  two  great  com« 
mandments  make  one  duty.  Completely  carried 
out   in   all   their  parts,   they  would    make  life  a 

^  Preached  at  St.    Mark's  Church,    Upper  Hamilton  Terrace, 
London,  Sunday  morning,  13th  May  1883. 


II.  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD.  23 

Strong  and  perfect  unit.  But,  as  we  study  them,  ^ 
it  is  possible  to  take  their  unity  apart  and  fix  our  1 
thoughts  upon  a  single  one  of  the  elements  of  which 
it  is  composed.  This  is  what  I  want  to  do  this 
morning  ;  for  there  is  one  part  of  the  great  com- 
prehensive statement  of  duty  which,  often  as  we 
repeat  it,  I  think  that  many  of  us  seldom  pause 
to  consider  and  have  seldom  consciously  and  con- 
scientiously tried  to  work  out  into  life.  It  is  that 
in  which  Jesus  says,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  mind."  Far  more  familiar 
is  the  thought  which  is  included  in  the  other 
words,  "  Thou  shalt  love  God  with  all  thy  heart 
and  soul."  The  affections  of  the  emotional  nature 
we  think  of  very  often.  That  the  soul,  which  is 
the  very  seat  of  admiring  wonder  and  of  spiritual 
sympathy,  should  glow  and  burn  at  the  sight  of 
the  excellence  and  love  of  God,  we  all  see  and 
feel  how  natural  that  is.  But  that  the  mind 
must  love,  that  the  intellectual  nature  also  has  its 
affections  which  it  must  give  to  God  ;  this,  perhaps, 
seems  to  us  more  strange ;  certainly  it  is  less 
familiar. 

But  yet  if  it  is  true,  we  surely  want  to  under- 
stand it.  If  there  is  one  part  of  our  nature  which 
we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  thinking  either  had 
nothing  to  do  with  our  religion  or  else  could  only 
deal  with  our  religion  in  the  coldest  and  hardest 


24  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  n. 

way,  but  which,  indeed,  is  capable  of  burning  with 
its  own  peculiar  fire,  surely  it  will  be  worth  our 
while  to  study  it  as  carefully  as  we  can.  This  is 
why  I  ask  you  to  think  with  me  this  morning, 
about  the  Christian  loving  God  with  all  his  mind. 
In  the  first  place,  then,  we  want  to  assure  our- 
selves in  general  that  there  is  such  a  power  as 
intellectual  affection,  and  that  no  man  completely 
and  worthily  loves  any  noble  thing  or  person 
unless  he  loves  it  with  his  mind  as  well  as  with 
his  heart  and  soul.  That  will  not,  I  think,  be 
very  hard  to  see.  Take,  for  instance,  your  love 
for  some  beautiful  scene  of  nature.  There  is 
somewhere  upon  the  earth  a  lordly  landscape 
which  you  love.  When  you  are  absent  from  it, 
you  remember  it  with  delight  and  longing.  When 
you  step  into  the  sight  of  it  after  long  absence, 
your  heart  thrills  and  leaps.  While  you  sit  quietly 
gazing  day  after  day  upon  it,  your  whole  nature 
rests  in  peace  and  satisfaction.  Now,  what  is  it 
in  you  that  loves  that  loveliness  ?  Love  I  take 
to  be  the  delighted  perception  of  the  excellence  of 
things.  With  what  do  you  delightedly  perceive 
how  excellent  is  all  that  makes  up  that  land- 
scape's beauty,  the  bending  sky,  the  rolling  hill, 
the  sparkling  lake,  the  waving  harvest,  and  the 
brooding  mist  ?  First  of  all,  no  doubt,  with  your 
senses.      It   is   the   seeing   eye,  the   hearing   ear, 


II,  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD.  15 

the  sense  of  feeling  which  in  the  glowing  cheek  is 
soothed  or  made  to  tingle,  the  sense  of  smell 
which  catches  sweet  odours  from  the  garden  or 
the  hayfield, — it  is  these  that  love  the  landscape 
first ;  you  love  it  first  with  all  your  senses.  But 
next  to  that  what  comes  ?  Suppose  that  the 
bright  scene  is  radiant  with  associations,  suppose 
that  by  that  river  you  have  walked  with  your 
most  helpful  friend  ;  upon  that  lake  you  have 
floated  and  frolicked  when  you  were  a  boy  ; 
across  that  field  you  have  guided  the  staggering 
plough  ;  over  that  hill  you  have  climbed  in  days 
when  life  was  all  sunshine  and  breeze.  That 
part  of  you  which  is  capable  of  delightedly  per- 
ceiving these  associations  as  they  shine  up  to  you 
from  the  glowing  scenery,  perceives  them  with 
delight  and  takes  the  landscape  into  its  affection. 
You  love  the  scene  with  all  your  heart.  But  yet 
again,  suppose  a  deeper  faculty  in  you  perceives 
the  hand  of  God  in  all  this  wondrous  beauty; 
suppose  a  glad  and  earnest  gratitude  springs  up 
in  you  and  goes  to  meet  the  meadow  and  the  sky  ; 
suppose  that  all  seems  to  tell  to  some  deep 
listening  instinct  in  you  that  it  was  all  made  for 
you,  and  made  by  one  who  loved  you  ;  suppose 
that  it  all  stands  as  a  rich  symbol  of  yet  richer 
spiritual  benefits  of  which  you  are  aware  ;  what 
then  ?      Does  not  another  part  of  you  spridg  up 


26  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD.  II. 

and  pour  out  its  affection,  your  power  of  rever- 
ence and  gratefulness  ;  and  so  you  love  the  land- 
scape then  with  all  your  soul.  Or  yet  again,  if 
the  whole  scene  appears  to  tempt  you  with  in- 
vitations to  work  :  the  field  calling  on  you  to  till 
it,  and  the  river  to  bridge  it,  and  the  hill  to  set 
free  the  preciousness  of  gold  or  silver  with  which 
its  heart  is  full  and  heavy ;  to  that  too  you  respond 
with  your  power  of  working  ;  and  then  you  love 
the  scene  with  all  your  will,  or  all  your  strength. 

And  now,  suppose  that,  beyond  all  these,  another 
spirit  comes  out  from  the  landscape  to  claim 
another  yet  unclaimed  part  of  you  ;  suppose  that 
unsolved  problems  start  out  from  the  earth  and 
from  the  sky.  Glimpses  of  relationships  between 
things  and  of  qualities  in  things  flit  before  you, 
just  letting  you  see  enough  of  them  to  set  your 
curiosity  all  astir.  The  scene  which  cried  before, 
"  Come,  admire  me,"  or  "  Come,  work  on  me," 
now  cries,  "  Come,  study  me."  What  hangs  the 
stars  in  their  places  and  swings  them  on  their 
way  ;  how  the  earth  builds  the  stately  tree  out  of 
the  petty  seed  ;  how  the  river  feeds  the  cornfield  ; 
where  lie  the  metals  in  the  mountains — these, 
and  a  hundred  other  questions,  leap  out  from  the 
picture  before  you  and,  pressing  in,  past  your 
senses  and  your  emotions  and  your  practical 
powers,  will  not  rest  till  they  have  found  out  youf 


II.  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD.  27 

intelligence.  They  appeal  to  the  mind,  and  the 
mind  responds  to  them  ;  not  coldly,  as  if  it  had 
nothing  to  do  but  just  to  find  and  register  their 
answers  but  enthusiastically,  perceiving  with  de- 
light the  excellence  of  the  truths  at  which  they 
point,  recognising  its  appropriate  task  in  their 
solution,  and  so  loving  the  nature  out  of  which 
they  spring  in  its  distinctive  way. 

Is  not  this  clear  ?  Is  it  not  manifestly  true 
that,  besides  the  love  of  the  senses,  and  the  love 
of  the  heart,  and  the  love  of  the  soul,  and  the 
love  of  the  strength,  there  is  also  a  love  of  the 
mind,  without  whose  entrance  into  the  complete- 
ness of  the  loving  man's  relation  to  the  object  of 
his  love  his  love  is  not  complete  ?  Think  of  the 
patriot's  love  for  his  land.  Is  it  complete  until 
the  great  ideas  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  the 
country's  life  have  appealed  to  the  patriot's  in- 
tellect, and  his  mind  has  enthusiastically  recog- 
nised their  truth  and  majesty  ?  Is  your  greatest 
friend  contented  with  your  love  before  you  have 
come  to  love  him  with  all  your  mind  ?  Will  any 
fondness  for  his  person,  or  association  with  his 
habits,  or  gratitude  for  his  kindness,  make  up  for 
the  absence  of  intellectual  sympathy,  for  a  failure 
of  your  understanding  to  grasp  the  truths  by 
which  he  lives  ?  Everywhere  we  find  our  assur- 
ances that    the   mind    has    its  affections  and  en- 


28  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD.  II 

thusiasms,  that  the  intellect  is  no  cold-hearted 
monster  who  only  thinks  and  judges,  but  that  it 
glows  with  love,  not  merely  perceiving,  but  de- 
lighted to  perceive,  the  beauty  of  the  things  with 
which  it  has  to  do 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  it  were  not  so  ; 
strange  indeed  if  the  noblest  part  of  us  were  in- 
capable of  the  noblest  action  ;  strange  indeed  if, 
while  our  senses  could  thrill  and  our  hearts  leap 
with  affection,  the  mind  must  go  its  way  in  pure 
indifference,  making  its  great  discoveries  with  no 
emotion  for  the  truths  which  it  discovered,  and  for 
the  men  in  whom  those  truths  were  uttered.  But 
it  is  not  so.  The  intellect  can  love.  The  beine 
who  has  intellect  does  not  love  perfectly  unless  his 
intellect  takes  part  in  his  loving.  We  know  that 
God  loves  man.  The  first  article  of  all  our  faith 
in  Him,  next  to  His  existence,  is  that  He  is  no 
cold  passive  observer  or  manager  of  what  goes  on 
upon  the  earth,  but  that  He  loves  the  world  and 
man  in  whom  the  deepest  interest  of  the  world 
resides.  But  can  we  think  about  God's  love  and 
not  feel  ever  present  as  an  element  in  it  the 
working  of  the  infinite  mind  as  well  as  of  the 
perfect  heart  ?  There  is  moral  approbation,  there 
is  the  father's  tenderness,  there  is  delight  in  the 
beauty  of  a  good  character.  But  the  love  on 
which  we  rest,  and  from  which  our  most  mighty 


II.  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD.  29 

inspirations  come,  is  surely  not  complete  until  there 
also  is  in  it  the  delight  of  the  perfect  intellect  in 
the  fitness  of  things,  and  joy  in  the  adaptaton  of 
part  to  part,  in  the  perfect  sight  of  all  the  absolute 
harmony  of  laws  and  forces  of  which  the  little 
stray  glimpses  which  we  catch  give  the  world  a 
new  sort  of  dearness  in  our  eyes,  and  make  us 
glow  with  enthusiasm  as  we,  with  our  small  judg- 
ments, speak  God's  words  after  Him  and  call  it 
Good. 

I  know  that  I  appear,  as  I  speak  thus,  to 
separate  into  parts  that  which  does  really  work  as 
one  unit.  A  being  who  completely  loves  some- 
thing which  is  completely  worthy  of  his  love  does 
not  analyse  himself  with  any  such  analysis  as  this 
which  we  have  made.  His  affection  is  the  affec- 
tion of  the  one  whole  man.  But  when  we  force 
ourselves  to  analyse,  I  am  sure  we  come  to  this, 
that  the  mind  has  its  true  distinctive  power  of 
affection,  and  that  there  is  not  a  perfectness  of 
love  until  that  giant  of  the  nature  is  present  glow- 
ing with  delight  in  truth. 

No  doubt  men's  minds  differ  from  one  another 
exceedingly  in  their  capacity  of  affection.  As  we 
enter  into  the  society  of  the  great  masters  of  human 
thought,  it  is  a  difference  which  we  feel  at  once. 
Some  great  thinkers  seem  to  deal  virith  the  things 
of  which  they  think  in  passionless  calmness       It 


30  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  IL 

seems  as  if  they  flung  the  truths  they  find  abroad 
and  cared  no  more  for  them,  as  the  machine  flings 
out  the  nailj  it  makes.  They  see::i  to  be  almost 
like  machinery  which  you  can  set  at  work  on  any 
material.  But  always  there  is  another  class  of 
students  and  thinkers  whose  whole  intellectual 
action  is  alive  and  warm.  They  love  the  truth 
they  deal  with.  About  such  men  there  always  is 
a  charm  peculiar  to  themselves.  They  evidently 
have  a  joy  in  their  own  work,  and  they  make  other 
people  share  their  joy.  We  know  such  men  at 
once.  We  are  certain  that  the  minds  of  the  great 
theologians,  from  Paul  to  Maurice,  loved  their 
truths.  We  are  sure  that  Shakespeare's  intellect 
had  an  affection  for  its  wonderful  creations.  The 
highest  glory  of  the  great  students  of  natural 
science  to-day  is  in  the  glowing  love  of  which 
^  ;^  their  minds  are  full  for  Nature  and  her  truths.  It 
^  a  is  the  necessity  of  any  really  creative  genius.  It 
^  ^  is  the  soul  of  any  true  artistic  work.  Without  it 
^  !^  the  most  massive  structures  of  human  thought  are 
as  dead  and  heavy  as  the  pyramids.  With  it  the 
slightest  product  of  man's  mind  springs  into  life, 
and,  however  slight  it  be,  compels  and  fascinates 
attention. 

I  am  sure  that  there  is  no  wise  and  thoughtful 
teacher  of  yo'ing  people  whose  whole  experience 
has  not  borne  witness  often  to  what  I  am  saying. 


II.  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  3 1 

that  the  mind  has  a  power  of  directly  loving  truth 
which  must  be  awakened  before  the  learner  is 
leally  able  to  do  his  best  work.  You  tell  your 
scholar  that  he  must  study  because  his  parents 
wish  it,  because  he  ought  to  be  equal  to  his  fellow- 
scholars,  because  he  will  be  poor  and  dishonoured 
if  he  is  ignorant.  These  motives  are  good,  but 
they  are  only  the  kindling  under  the  fire.  Not 
until  an  enthusiasm  of  your  scholar's  own  intellect 
begins  and  he  loves  the  books  you  offer  him  with 
his  mind,  because  of  the  way  they  lay  hold  of  his 
power  of  knowing  them  ;  not  until  then  has  the 
wood  really  caught  and  your  fire  truly  begun  to 
burn.  To  that  end  every  true  teacher  must  devote 
himself,  and  not  count  his  work  fairly  begun  till 
that  is  gained.  When  that  is  gained  ihe  scholar 
is  richer  by  a  new  power  of  loving,  the  power  of 
loving  with  his  intellect,  and  he  goes  on  through 
life,  carrying  in  the  midst  of  all  the  sufferings  and 
disappointments  which  he  meets  a  fountain  of  true 
joy  in  his  own  mind  which  can  fill  him  with  peace 
and  happiness  when  men  about  him  think  that  he 
has  only  dreariness  and  poverty  and  pain. 

But  now  it  is  quite  time  to  turn  to  Christ's 
commandment.  I  hope  that  we  shall  find  that 
^hat  we  have  been  saying  will  make  it  clearer  and 
stronger  to  us.  Christ  bids  His  disciples  to  love 
God  with  all  their  minds.     As  we  hear  His  words 


3* 


THE  mind's  love  FOR  COD.  IL 


we  know  that  He  is  speaking  for  God.  Near  to 
God  as  He  is  in  sympathy,  one  with  God  as  He 
is  in  nature,  we  are  sure  that  He  is  able  to  tell  us 
what  God  wants  of  His  children.  And  the  glory 
of  this  part  of  His  commandment,  which  we  have 
chosen  for  our  study,  seems  to  me  to  be  in  this 
assurance  which  it  gives  us  that  God,  the  Father 
of  men,  is  not  satisfied  if  His  children  give  Him 
simply  gratitude  for  His  mercies  or  the  most  loyal 
obedience  to  His  will  ;  but  that  He  wants  also,  as 
the  fulfilment  of  their  love  to  Him,  the  enthusiastic 
use  of  their  intellects,  intent  to  know  everything 
that  it  is  possible  for  men  to  know  about  their 
Father  and  His  ways.  That  is  what,  as  I  think 
we  have  seen,  is  meant  by  loving  God  with  the 
mind.  And  is  there  not  something  sublimely 
beautiful  and  touching  in  this  demand  of  God  that 
the  noblest  part  of  His  children's  nature  should 
come  to  Him?  "  Understand  me!  understand  me!" 
He  seems  to  cry  ;  "  I  am  not  wholly  loved  by  you 
unless  your  understanding  is  reaching  out  after 
my  truth,  and  with  all  your  powers  of  thoughtful- 
ness  and  study  you  are  trying  to  find  out  all  that 
you  can  about  my  nature  and  my  ways." 

If  we  rightly  interpret  God  when  we  seem  to 
hear  Him  saying  such  words  as  these,  then  there 
must  follow  a  conviction  which  certainly  ought  to 
bring  comfort  and  incitement  at   once  to   many 


IL  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  33 

souls.  It  is  that  it  is  both  man's  privilege  and 
duty  to  reason  and  think  his  best  about  God  and 
the  things  of  God,  and  that  worse  than  any 
blunders  or  mistakes  which  any  man  may  make 
in  his  religious  thinking  is  the  abandonment  of 
religious  thought  altogether,  and  the  consignment 
of  the  infinite  interests  of  man  to  the  mere  region 
of  feeling  and  emotion. 

If  you  would  know  how  needful  that  conviction 
is,  you  have  only  to  listen  to  the  strange  way  in 
which  many  people,  both  believers  and  unbelievers, 
talk  about  God  and  about  religion.  Hear  what 
is  the  tone  of  man^'  who  call  themselves  believers. 
I  go  to  a  man  who  stands  holding  his  Bible 
clasped  with  both  hands  upon  his  breast.  I  say 
to  him,  "  Tell  me  about  that  book  !  What  is  it  ? 
Where  did  it  come  from  ?  What  is  it  made  up 
of?  How  do  its  parts  belong  together?  What 
is  the  ground  of  its  authority  ?  Why  do  you 
love  it  so  ? "  And  he  turns  round  to  me  and 
says,  "  I  will  not  ask,  I  will  not  hear  questions  like 
these  !  I  love  this  book  with  all  my  heart !  It 
has  helped  me.  It  has  helped  my  fathers.  When 
its  promises  speak  to  me  I  am  calm.  When  its 
cry  summons  me  I  am  brave.  I  will  obey  it  and 
I  will  not  question  it.  I  love  it  with  all  my  heart 
and  soul  and  strength." 

I  see  another  man  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  God 


34  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD. 


He  knows  that  God  is  standing  over  him.  He 
feels  the  shadow  of  the  outstretched  hand.  He 
hears  a  voice  which  takes  his  will  captive.  I  say 
to  him,  "  Tell  me  about  God.  Try  to  explain  to 
me  what  is  His  nature.  Let  me  understand  in 
some  degree  how  He  comes  into  communication 
with  men's  souls."  And  the  grieved  worshipper 
looks  up  almost  in  anger,  and  cries,  "  Away  with 
such  questions  !  You  must  not  understand.  You 
must  not  try  to  understand  ;  you  must  only  listen, 
and  worship,  and  obey." 

I  see  the  soul  which  Christ  has  helped,  the 
man  for  whom  all  the  green  earth  is  different  be- 
cause of  the  Divine  feet  that  trod  it  once.  I  say 
to  Him,  "  Let  us  see  if  we  can  know  anything 
about  the  Incarnation.  What  has  this  coming  of 
God  among  men  in  the  wonderful  life  of  His  Son 
to  do  with  that  sonship  of  all  men  to  God,  which 
is  an  everlasting  fact  ?  How  did  He  who  came 
mean  to  deal  with  all  the  remote  anticipations  of 
His  coming,  and  cravings  after  Him,  of  which  the 
whole  religious  history  of  man  is  full  ?  What 
were  the  wonderful  works  that  fell  from  His  hands, 
which  V  j:  call  miracles?"  I  ask  such  questions 
in  the  profoundest  reverence ;  and  again  the 
lover  of  Christ  turns  off  from  me  and  says  re- 
bukingly,  "  You  must  not  ask  ;  Christ  is  above  all 
questions.      He  bears  His  own  witness  to  the  soul 


II.  THE  MIND  S  LO  VE  FOR  GOD.  35 


He  helps.  The  less,"  even  so  some  will  speak  of 
Him,  "  the  less  I  understand  of  Him  the  more  I 
love  Him." 

Yet  once  again  I  speak  to  the  saint  at  His 
sacrament.  I  beg  of  him  to  let  me  know  what 
that  dear  and  lofty  rite  means  to  him  ;  what  are 
the  perpetual  faculties  and  dispositions  of  our 
human  nature  to  which  it  appeals  ;  how  it  is  that 
he  expects  to  receive  his  Saviour  there.  And  he 
cries,  "  Hush !  you  must  not  rationalise.  It  is  a 
mystery.  No  man  can  tell.  The  reason  has  no 
function  here." 

You  will  not  misunderstand  me,  I  am  sure. 
You  will  not  think  that  I  disparage  in  the  least 
degree  the  noble  power  of  unreasoning  love.  The 
Bible,  God,  Christ,  the  Sacraments,  the  Church  ; 
these  great  realities  cannot  exist  without  finding 
out  men's  hearts,  and  winning  them,  and  giving 
precious  blessings  through  the  adoration  and 
emotion  which  they  evoke.  But  what  I  want  to 
say  most  earnestly  is  this,  that  each  of  the  men  I 
have  described,  with  whatever  other  parts  of  him- 
self he  loves  the  object  of  his  affection,  does  not 
love  it  with  his  mind  ;  that,  therefore,  his  affection 
is  a  crippled  thing  ;  and  that  if  it  be  possible  for 
him  to  bring  his  intelligence  to  bear  upon  his 
faith,  t3  see  the  reasonableness  which  is  at  the 
heart  of  every  truth,  to  discriminate  between  the 


36  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  ii. 

true  and  the  false  forms  of  belief,  to  recognise  how 
Christian  truth  is  bound  up  with  all  the  truth  of 
which  the  world  is  full,  and  so  to  understand  in 
some  degree  what  now  already  he  adores  ;  he  will, 
without  losing  in  the  least  his  adoration,  gain  a 
new  delight  in  a  perception  of  the  beauty  of  his 
truth  upon  another  side  ;  his  relation  to  it  will  be 
more  complete  ;  it  will  become  more  truly  his  ; 
and  his  whole  life  will  more  completely  feel  its 
power. 

There  are  Christians  all  about  us  who  fear  to 
bring  their  minds  to  bear  upon  their  religion  lest 
their  hearts  should  lose  their  hold  upon  it.  Surely 
there  is  something  terrible  in  that.  Surely  it  im- 
plies a  terrible  misgiving  and  distrust  about  their 
faith.  They  fear  to  think  lest  they  should  cease 
to  love.  But  really  it  ought  to  be  out  of  the 
heart  of  their  thinking  power  that  their  deepest 
love  is  born.  There  is  a  love  with  most  imper- 
fect knowledge.  The  highest  love  which  man 
can  ever  have  for  God  must  still  live  in  the  com- 
pany of  a  knowledge  which  is  so  partial  that, 
looked  at  against  the  perfect  light,  it  will  appear 
like  darkness.  But  yet  it  still  is  true  that  the 
deeper  is  the  knowledge  the  greater  becomes  the 
possibility  of  love.  They  always  have  loved  God 
best,  they  are  loving  God  best  to-day,  who  gaze 
upon  Him  with  wide-open  eyes  ;  who,  conscious 


II.  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  37 

of  their  ignorance  and  weakness,  more  conscious 
of  it  the  more  they  try  to  know,  yet  do  try  with 
all  the  powers  He  has  given  them,  to  understand 
all  that  they  possibly  can  of  Him  and  of  His  ways. 
I  said  that  the  unbeliever  as  well  as  the  believer 
needed  to  recognise,  and  often  failed  to  recognise, 
the  true  place  of  the  mind  and  thinking  powers  in 
religion.  Let  me  tell  you  what  I  mean  by  that. 
There  is  a  curious  way  of  talking  which  seems  to 
me  to  have  grown  strangely  common  of  late  among 
the  men  who  disbelieve  in  Christianity.  It  is 
patronising,  and  quietly  insulting ;  it  takes  for 
granted  that  the  Christian's  faith  has  no  real  rea- 
son at  its  heart,  nor  any  trustworthy  grounds  for 
thinking  itself  true.  At  the  same  time  it  grants 
that  there  is  a  certain  weak  side  of  human  nature, 
where  the  reason  does  not  work,  where  everything 
depends  on  sentiment  and  feeling,  where  not  what 
is  true,  but  what  is  beautiful  and  comforting  and 
reassuring  is  the  soul's  demand  ;  and  that  side  of 
the  nature  it  gives  over  to  religion.  Because  that 
side  of  the  nature  is  the  most  prominent  part,  and 
indeed  sometimes  seems  to  be  the  whole,  of  weaker 
kinds  of  men  and  women,  it  accepts  the  necessity 
of  religion  for  these  weak  people,  and  does  not 
desire  its  immediate  extinction  ;  only  it  must  not 
pretend  to  be  a  reasonable  thing.  Theology  must 
not  call  itself  a  science,  and  Faith  must  know  it  is 


38  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  K. 

a  dream.  "  Yes,  be  religious  if  you  will,"  this 
spirit  cries,  "  only  do  not  imagine  that  your  intel- 
lect has  anything  to  do  with  it !  Be  religious ; 
dwell  on  the  beauty  of  the  sacred  past  ;  let  your 
lives  walk  in  the  twilight  of  imaginary  cloisters ; 
picture  to  yourselves  what  the  world  would  be  if 
there  were  a  God  ;  weep  over  the  legendary  woes 
of  Jesus  ;  dream  of  immortal  life  ;  give  yourself 
up  to  rapturous  emotions,  whose  source  is  largely 
physical  ;  nay,  if  you  will,  be  stirred  by  your 
dreams  to  noble  and  self-sacrificing  work — do  all 
this  and  be  made  happier.  Yes,  perhaps  be  made 
better — if  there  are  such  things  as  good  and  bad 
— by  doing  it  ;  only,  do  not  for  a  moment  think 
that  the  mind,  the  reason,  has  anything  to  do  with 
it  at  all.  It  is  pure  sentimentality.  Religion  is 
a  thing  of  feelings  and  of  fancies  altogether."  So 
pityingly,  patronisingly,  and  insultingly  talks  many 
an  unbeliever.  Nay,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  there 
are  some  men  whose  minds  are  wholly  sceptical  of 
Christian  truth,  who  yet  allow  themselves  a  sort 
of  religion  on  the  weaker  side.  They  let  their 
emotions  be  religious,  while  they  keep  their  minds 
in  the  hard  clear  air  of  disbelief;  the  heart  may 
worship,  while  the  brain  denies.  I  will  not  stop 
to  ask  the  meaning  of  this  last  strange  condition, 
interesting  as  the  study  might  be  made.  I  only 
want  you  all  to  feel  how  thoroughly  Christianity 


II.  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD.  39 

is  bound  to  reject  indignantly  this  whole  treatment 
of  itself.  Just  think  how  the  great  masters  ol 
religion  would  receive  it !  Think  of  David  and 
his  cry — "  Thy  testimonies  are  wonderful.  I  have 
more  understanding  than  my  teachers,  for  thy 
testimonies  are  my  study."  Think  of  Paul — 'O 
the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and 
knowledge  of  God."  Think  of  Augustine,  Luther, 
Calvin,  Milton,  Edwards,  and  a  hundred  more,  the 
men  whose  minds  have  found  their  loftiest  inspira- 
tion in  religion,  how  would  they  have  received  this 
quiet  and  contemptuous  relegation  of  the  most 
stupendous  subjects  of  human  thought  to  the  region 
of  silly  sentiment  ?  They  were  men  who  loved 
the  Lord  their  God  with  all  their  minds.  The 
noble  relation  of  their  intellects  to  Him  was  the 
supreme  satisfaction  of  their  lives.  We  cannot 
imagine  them  for  a  moment  as  yielding  up  that 
great  region  of  their  lives  in  which  their  minds 
delighted  in  the  study  and  attainment  of  His 
truth. 

There  are  ignorant  saints  who  come  very  near 
to  God,  and  live  in  the  rich  sunlight  of  His  love  ; 
but  none  the  less  for  that  is  their  ignorance  a  de- 
traction from  their  sainthood.  There  are  mystics 
who,  seeing  how  God  outgoes  human  knowledge, 
choose  to  assume  that  Gcd  is  not  a  subject  of 
human  knowledge  at  all  ;  tiiat  His  works  are  dis- 


40  THE  MINDS  LOVE  FOR  GOD.  IL 

tinct  in  kind  from  any  of  which  we  know,  prompted 
by  other  motives,  and  proceeding  upon  principles 
entirely  unintelligible  to  our  reason.  Such  mystics 
may  mount  to  sublime  heights  of  unreasoning  con- 
templation, but  there  is  an  incompleteness  in  their 
love  ;  because  they  rob  one  part  of  their  nature 
of  all  share  in  their  approach  to  God.  Their  first 
assumption  is  not  true  ;  their  starting-point  is 
wrong.  God's  ways  are  not  as  our  ways.  More 
vast,  infinitely  more  vast  in  size  than  ours,  they 
stretch  beyond  us,  as  the  ocean  stretches  beyond 
the  little  pool  of  water  which  it  has  left,  separated 
from  and  yet  united  to  itself,  behind  the  extended 
arm  of  the  outreaching  shore.  But  yet,  because 
we  are  made  in  the  image  of  God,  His  ways  aie 
of  the  same  kind  as  ours,  and  we  may  know  very 
much  about  them  as  you  may  know  much  about 
the  ocean  from  the  study  of  the  waters  of  the  bay, 
and  from  the  sight  of  how  the  tides  sweep  into  it 
and  out  again.  There  is  no  principle  involved  in 
the  Atonement  of  Christ  that  is  not  included  in  its 
essence  in  the  most  sacred  relations  between  man 
and  man.  The  Bible  opens  new  beauties  and 
depths  to  any  man  who  studies  its  history,  its 
geography,  its  language,  with  the  same  intelligence 
with  which  men  study  other  books.  The  Church 
is  an  institution  built  o"  men,  and  a  knowledge  of 
human    nature    throws    perpetual   light    upon  its 


II.  THE  MI\d'S  love  FOR  GOD.  41 

character  and  its  hopes.  Everywhere,  to  think 
that  divine  truth  Hes  beyond  or  away  from  the 
intelligence  of  man,  is  at  once  to  make  divine  truth 
unreal  and  unpractical,  and  to  condemn  the  human 
intelligence  to  dealing  not  with  the  highest,  but 
only  with  the  lower  themes. 

I  have  pled  with  you  to-day  for  the  use  of  your 
intellects  in  matters  of  religion.  By  them  you 
must  discriminate  between  the  false  and  the  true. 
You  have  no  other  faculty  with  which  to  do  that 
necessary  work.  You  cannot  know  that  one  idea 
is  necessarily  true  because  it  seems  to  help  you, 
nor  that  another  idea  is  false  because  it  wounds 
and  seems  to  hinder  you.  Your  mind  is  your 
faculty  for  judging  what  is  true  ;  and  only  by  the 
use  of  your  thoughtful  intellect,  too,  can  you  pre- 
serve your  faith  in  the  attacks  which  come  against 
it  on  every  side.  However  it  may  have  been  in 
other  days,  however  it  may  seem  to  be  to-day,  in 
the  days  which  are  to  come — the  days  in  which 
the  younger  people  who  hear  me  now  will  live — 
there  will  be  ever-increasing  demand  for  thought- 
ful saints  ;  for  men  and  women,  earnest,  lofty, 
spiritual,  but  also  full  of  intelligence,  knowing  the 
meaning  and  the  reasons  of  the  things  which  they 
believe,  and  not  content  to  worship  the  God  to 
whom  they  owe  everything  with  less  than  their 
whole  nature. 


42  THE  mind's  love  FOR  GOD. 


I  appeal  to  you,  young  Christian  people,  to  be 
ready  for  that  coming  time,  with  all  its  high  de* 
mands.  I  appeal  to  you  upon  the  highest  grounds. 
Love  God  with  all  your  mind,  because  your  mind, 
like  all  the  rest  of  you,  belongs  to  Him,  and  it  is 
not  right  that  you  should  give  Him  only  a  part  to 
whom  belongs  the  whole.  When  the  procession 
of  your  powers  goes  up  joyfully  singing  to  worship 
in  the  temple,  do  not  leave  the  noblest  of  them  all 
behind  to  cook  the  dinner  and  to  tend  the  house. 
Give  your  intelligence  to  God.  Know  all  that 
you  can  know  about  Him.  In  spite  of  all  disap- 
pointment and  weakness,  insist  on  seeing  all  that 
you  can  see  now  through  the  glass  darkly,  so  that 
hereafter  you  may  be  ready  when  the  time  for 
seeing  face  to  face  shall  come  ! 

May  God  stir  some  of  us  to-day  to  such  ambi- 
tion, to  the  consecration  of  our  minds  to  Him ! 


III. 

THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.* 

•*  So  they  gave  it  me  :  then  I  cast  it  into  the  fire  and  there  came 
out  this  calf." — Exodus  xxxii.  24. 

In  the  story  from  which  these  words  are  taken 
we  see  Moses  go  up  into  the  mountain  to  hold 
communion  with  God,  While  he  is  gone  the 
Israelites  begin  to  murmur  and  complain.  They 
want  other  gods,  gods  of  their  own.  Aaron, 
the  brother  of  Moses,  was  their  priest.  He 
yielded  to  the  people,  and  when  they  brought 
him  their  golden  earrings  he  made  out  of  them 
a  golden  calf  for  them  to  worship.  When  Moses 
came  down  from  the  mountain  he  found  the 
people  deep  in  their  idolatry.  He  was  indignant. 
First  he  destroyed  the  idol,  "  He  burnt  it  in  the 
fire,  and  ground  it  to  powder,  and  strawed  it  upon 
the  water,  and  made  the  children  of  Israel  drink 
of  it."     Then  he  turned  to  Aaron.     "  What  did 

^  Preached  at  Christ  Church,  Lancaster  Gate,  London,  Sunday 
morning,  27th  May  1883. 


44  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  Ill 

this  people  unto  thee,"  he  said,  "  that  thou  hast 
brought  so  great  a  sin  upon  them  ?  "  And  Aaron 
meanly  answered,  "  Let  not  the  anger  of  my  lord 
wax  hot :  thou  knowest  the  people,  that  they 
are  set  on  mischief.  For  they  said  unto  me. 
Make  us  gods,  which  shall  go  before  us.  .  .  .  And  I 
said  unto  them.  Whosoever  hath  any  gold,  let 
them  break  it  off.  So  they  gave  it  me  :  then  I 
cast  it  into  the  fire,  and  there  came  out  this 
calf."  That  was  his  mean  reply.  The  real  story 
of  what  actually  happened  had  been  written 
earlier  in  the  chapter.  When  the  people  brought 
Aaron  their  golden  earrings  "  he  received  them 
at  their  hand,  and  fashioned  it  with  a  graving 
tool,  after  he  had  made  it  a  molten  calf :  and 
they  said,  These  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel,  which 
brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt."  That 
was  what  really  happened,  and  this  is  the  descrip- 
tion which  Aaron  gave  of  it  to  Moses  :  "  So  they 
gave  it  me :  then  I  cast  it  into  the  fire,  and 
there  came  out  this  calf." 

Aaron  was  frightened  at  what  he  had  done. 
He  was  afraid  of  the  act  itself,  and  he  was  afraid 
of  what  Moses  would  say  about  it.  Like  all 
timid  men,  he  trembled  before  the  storm  which 
he  had  raised.  And  so  he  tried  to  persuade 
Moses,  and  perhaps  in  some  degree  even  to  per- 
suade himself,  that  it  was  not  he  that  had  done 


iiL  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  45 

this  thing.  He  lays  the  blame  upon  the  furnace. 
"The  fire  did  it,"  he  declares.  He  will  not 
blankly  face  his  sin,  and  yet  he  will  not  tell  a  lie 
in  words.  He  tells  what  is  literally  true.  He 
had  cast  the  earrings  into  the  fire,  and  this  call 
had  come  out.  But  he  leaves  out  the  one  im- 
portant point,  his  own  personal  agency  in  it  all  ; 
the  fact  that  he  had  moulded  the  earrings  into 
the  calf's  shape,  and  that  he  had  taken  it  out  and 
set  it  on  its  pedestal  for  the  people  to  adore.  He 
tells  it  so  that  it  shall  all  look  automatic.  It  is  a 
curious,  ingenious,  but  transparent  lie. 

Let  us  look  at  Aaron's  speech  a  little  while 
this  morning,  and  see  what  it  represents.  For  it 
does  represent  something.  There  never  was  a 
speech  more  true  to  one  disposition  of  our 
human  nature.  We  are  all  ready  to  lay  the 
blame  upon  the  furnaces.  "  The  fire  did  it,"  we 
are  all  of  us  ready  enough  to  say.  Here  is  a 
man  all  gross  and  sensual,  a  man  still  young  who 
has  already  lost  the  freshness  and  the  glory  and 
the  purity  of  youth.  He  is  profane  ;  he  is  cruel  ; 
he  is  licentious ;  all  his  brightness  has  grown 
lurid  ;  all  his  wit  is  ribaldry.  You  know  the  man. 
As  far  as  a  man  can  be,  he  is  a  brute.  Suppose 
you  question  that  man  about  his  life.  You  expect 
him  to  be  ashamed,  to  be  repentant.  There  is 
Dot  a  sign  of  anything    like  that !     He  says,  "  I 


46  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  TO. 

am  the  victim  of  circumstances.  What  a  corrupt, 
Hcentious,  profane  age  this  is  in  which  we  live ! 
When  I  was  in  college  I  got  into  a  bad  set. 
When  I  went  into  business  I  was  surrounded 
by  bad  influences.  When  I  grew  rich,  men 
flattered  me.  When  I  grew  poor,  men  bullied 
me.  The  world  has  made  me  what  I  am,  this 
fiery,  passionate,  wicked  world.  I  had  in  my 
hands  the  gold  of  my  boyhood  which  God  gave 
me.  Then  I  cast  it  into  the  fire,  and  there  came 
out  this  calf."  And  so  the  poor  wronged  miser- 
able creature  looks  into  your  face  with  his  bleared 
eyes  and  asks  your  pity.  Another  man  is  not 
a  profligate,  but  is  a  miser,  or  a  mere  business 
machine.  "  What  can  you  ask  of  me,"  he  says, 
"  this  is  a  mercantile  community.  The  business 
man  who  does  not  attend  to  his  business  goes  to 
the  wall.  I  am  what  this  intense  commercial 
life  has  made  me.  I  put  my  life  in  there,  and  it 
came  out  this."  And  then  he  gazes  fondly  at  his 
golden  calf,  and  his  knees  bend  under  him  with 
the  old  long  habit  of  worshipping  it,  and  he  loves 
it  still,  even  while  he  abuses  and  disowns  it.  And 
so  with  the  woman  of  society.  "  The  fire  made 
me  this,"  she  says  of  her  frivolity  and  pride.  And 
so  of  the  politician  and  his  selfishness  and  par- 
tisanship. "  I  put  my  principles  into  the  furnace, 
and  this  came  out."     And  so  of  the  bigot  and 


III.  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  47 

his  bigotry,  the  one-sided  conservative  with  his 
stubborn  resistance  to  all  progress,  the  one-sided 
radical  with  his  ruthless  iconoclasm.  So  of  all 
partial  and  fanatical  men.  "  The  furnace  made 
us,"  they  are  ready  to  declare.  "  These  times 
compel  us  to  be  this.  In  better  times  we  might 
have  been  better,  broader  men  ;  but  now,  behold. 
God  put  us  into  the  fire,  and  we  came  out  this." 
It  is  what  one  is  perpetually  hearing  about  dis- 
belief. "  The  times  have  made  me  sceptical. 
How  is  it  possible  for  a  man  to  live  in  days  like 
these  and  yet  believe  in  God  and  Jesus  and  the 
Resurrection.  You  ask  me  how  I,  who  was 
brought  up  in  the  faith  and  in  the  Church, 
became  a  disbeliever.  Oh,  you  remember  that 
I  lived  five  years  here,"  or  "  three  years  there." 
"  You  know  I  have  been  very  much  thrown  with 
this  set  or  with  that.  You  know  the  temper  of  our 
town.  I  cast  myself  into  the  fire,  and  I  came  out 
this."  One  is  all  ready  to  understand,  my  friends, 
how  the  true  soul,  struggling  for  truth,  seems 
often  to  be  worsted  in  the  struggle.  One  is 
ready  to  have  tolerance,  respect,  and  hope  for 
any  mac  who,  reaching  after  God,  ts  awed  by 
God's  immensity  and  his  own  littleness,  and  falls 
back  crushed  and  doubtful.  His  is  a  doubt  which 
is  born  in  the  secret  chambers  of  his  own  per- 
sonal conscientiousness.     It  is  independent  of  hia 


v/ 


48  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  IIL 

circumstances  and  surroundings.  The  soul  which 
has  truly  come  to  a  personal  doubt  finds  it  hard 
to  conceive  of  any  ages  of  most  implicit  faith  in 
which  it  could  have  lived  in  which  that  doubt 
would  not  have  been  in  it.  It  faces  its  doubt 
in  a  solitude  where  there  is  none  but  it  and 
God.  All  that  one  understands,  and  the  more 
he  understands  it  the  more  unintelligible  does  it 
seem  to  him,  that  any  earnest  soul  can  really  lay 
its  doubt  upon  the  age,  the  set,  or  the  society  it  lives 
in.  No  ;  our  age,  our  society  is  what,  with  this 
figure  taken  out  of  the  old  story  of  Exodus,  we 
have  been  calling  it.  It  is  the  furnace.  Its  fire 
can  set  and  fix  and  fasten  what  the  man  puts 
into  it.  But,  properly  speaking,  it  can  create  no 
character.  It  can  make  no  truly  faithful  soul 
a  doubter.     It  never  did.      It  never  can. 

Remember  that  the  subtlety  and  attractive- 
ness of  this  excuse,  this  plausible  attributing  of 
power  to  inanimate  things  and  exterior  conditions 
to  create  what  only  man  can  make,  extends  not 
only  to  the  results  which  we  see  coming  forth  in 
ourselves  ;  it  covers  also  the  fortunes  of  those 
for  whom  we  are  responsible.  The  father  says  of 
his  profligate  son  whom  he  has  never  done  one 
wise  or  vigorous  thing  to  make  a  noble  and  pure- 
minded  man  :  "  I  cannot  tell  how  it  has  come. 
It   has  not  been  my  fault.     I  P»-:t  him  into  the 


III.1  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  49 

world  and  this  came  out"  The  father  whose 
faith  has  been  mean  and  selfish  says  the  same  of 
his  boy  who  is  a  sceptic.  Everywhere  there  is 
this  cowardly  casting  ofif  of  responsibilities  upon 
the  dead  circumstances  around  us.  It  is  a  very 
hard  treatment  of  the  poor,  dumb,  helpless  world 
which  cannot  answer  to  defend  itself  It  takes 
us  as  we  give  ourselves  to  it.  It  is  our  minister 
fulfilling  our  commissions  for  us  upon  our  own 
souls.  If  we  say  to  it,  "  Make  us  noble,"  it  does 
make  us  noble.  If  we  say  to  it,  "  Make  us  mean," 
it  does  make  us  mean.  And  then  we  take  the 
nobility  and  say,  "  Behold,  how  noble  I  have  ..^ 
made  myself"  And  we  take  the  meanness  and 
say,  "  See  how  mean  the  world  has  made  me." 

You  see,  I  am  sure,  how  perpetual  a  thing  the 
temper  of  Aaron  is,  how  his  excuse  is  heard  every- 
where and  always.  I  need  not  multiply  illustra- 
tions. But  now,  if  all  the  world  is  full  of  it,  the  v 
next  question  is,  What  does  it  mean  ?  Is  it  mere 
pure  deception,  or  is  there  also  delusion,  self- 
deception  in  it  ?  Take  Aaron's  case.  Was  he 
simply  telling  a  lie  to  Moses  and  trying  to  hide 
the  truth  from  his  brother  whom  he  dreaded, 
when  he  said,  "  I  cast  the  earrings  into  the  fire, 
and  this  calf  came  out  "  ?  Or  was  he  in  some  dim 
degree,  in  some  half-conscious  way,  deceiving  him- 
self?    Was  he  allowing  himself  to  attribute  some 

E 


50  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  [ill. 

power  to  the  furnace  in  the  making  of  the  caJf  ? 
Perhaps  as  we  read  the  verse  above  in  which  it  is 
so  distinctly  said  that  Aaron  fashioned  the  idol 
with  a  graving  tool,  any  such  supposition  seems 
incredible.  But  yet  I  cannot  but  think  that  some 
degree,  however  dim,  of  such  self-deception  was 
in  Aaron's  heart.  The  fire  was  mysterious.  He 
was  a  priest.  Who  could  say  that  some  strange 
creative  power  had  not  been  at  work  there  in  the 
heart  of  the  furnace  which  had  done  for  him  what 
he  seemed  to  do  for  himself  There  was  a  human 
heart  under  that  ancient  ephod,  and  it  is  hard  to 
think  that  Aaron  did  not  succeed  in  bringing 
himself  to  be  somewhat  imposed  upon  by  his  own 
words,  and  hiding  his  responsibility  in  the  heart 
of  the  hot  furnace.  But  however  it  may  have 
been  with  Aaron,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
almost  all  cases  this  is  so.  Very  rarely  indeed 
does  a  man  excuse  himself  to  other  men  and  yet 
remain  absolutely  unexcused  in  his  own  eyes. 
When  Pilate  stands  washing  the  responsibility 
of  Christ's  murder  from  his  hands  before  the 
people,  was  he  not  feeling  himself  as  if  his  hands 
grew  cleaner  while  he  washed  ?  When  Shake- 
speare paints  Macbeth  with  the  guilty  ambition 
which  was  to  be  his  ruin  first  rising  in  his  heart, 
you  remember  how  he  makes  him  hide  his  new- 
IxDrn  purpose  to  be  king  even  from  himself,  and 


rii.]  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  51 

pretend  that  he  believes  that  he  is  willing  to 
accept  the  kingdom  only  if  it  shall  come  to  him 
out  of  the  working  of  things,  for  which  he  is  not 
responsible,  without  an  effort  of  his  own. 

'*  If  chance  will  have  me  king,  why,  chance  may  crown  me, 
Without  my  stir." 

That  was  the  first  stage  of  the  growing  crime 
which  finally  was  murder.  Often  it  takes  this 
form.  Often  the  very  way  to  help  ourselves 
most  to  a  result  which  we  have  set  before  our- 
selves is  just  to  put  ourselves  into  a  current  which 
is  sweeping  on  that  way,  and  then  lie  still  and  let 
the  current  do  the  rest ;  and  in  all  such  cases  it  is 
so  easy  to  ignore  or  to  forget  the  first  step,  which 
was  that  we  chose  that  current  for  our  resting- 
place,  and  so  to  say  that  it  is  only  the  drift  of  the 
current  which  is  to  blame  for  the  dreary  shore  on 
which  at  last  our  lives  are  cast  up  by  the  stream. 
Suppose  you  are  to-day  a  scornful  man,  a  man 
case-hardened  in  conceit  and  full  of  disbelief  in 
anything  generous  or  supernatural,  destitute  of  all 
enthusiasm,  contemptuous,  supercilious.  You  say 
the  time  you  live  in  has  made  you  so.  You  point 
to  one  large  tendency  in  the  community  which 
always  sets  that  way.  You  parade  the  specimens 
of  enthusiastic  people  whom  you  have  known  who 
have  been  fanatical  and  sillv      You  tell  me  what 


52  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  [in 

your  favourite  journal  has  been  saying  in  your 
ears  every  week  for  years.  You  bid  me  catch  the 
tone  of  the  brightest  people  whom  you  live  among, 
and  then  you  turn  to  me  and  say,  "  How  could 
one  live  in  such  an  atmosphere  and  not  grow 
cynical  ?  Behold,  my  times  have  made  me  what 
I  am."  What  'does  that  mean  ?  Are  you  merely 
J  trying  to  hide  from  me,  or  are  you  also  hiding 
from  yourself,  the  certain  fact  that  you  have  chosen 
that  special  current  to  launch  your  boat  upon,  that 
you  have  given  your  whole  attention  to  certain 
kinds  of  facts  and  shut  your  eyes  to  certain  others, 
that  you  have  constantly  valued  the  brightness 
which  went  to  the  depreciation  of  humanity  and 
despised  the  urgency  with  which  a  healthier,  spirit 
has  argued  for  the  good  in  man  and  for  his  ever- 
lasting hope  ?  Is  it  not  evident  that  you  yourself 
have  been  able  to  half  forget  all  this,  and  so  when 
the  stream  on  which  you  launched  your  boat  at 
last  drives  it  upon  the  beach  to  which  it  has  been 
flowing  all  the  time,  there  is  a  certain  lurking 
genuineness  in  the  innocent  surprise  with  which 
you  look  around  upon  the  desolate  shore  on  which 
you  land,  and  say  to  yourself,  "  How  unhappy  I 
am  that  I  should  have  fallen  upon  these  evil  days, 
in  which  it  is  impossible  that  a  man  should 
genuinely  respect  or  love  his  fellowmen  "  ? 

For  there  are  currents  flowing   always  in  alJ 


ni.]  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  53 

bad  directions.  There  is  a  perpetual  river  flowing 
towards  sensuality  and  vice.  There  is  a  river  flow- 
ing perpetually  towards  hypocrisy  and  religious 
pretence.  There  is  a  river  always  running  towards 
scepticism  and  infidelity.  And  when  you  once 
have  given  yourself  up  to  either  of  these  rivers, 
then  there  is  quite  enough  in  the  continual  pres- 
sure, in  that  great  movement  like  a  fate  beneath 
your  keel,  to  make  you  lose  the  sense  and  remem- 
brance that  it  is  by  your  own  will  that  you  are 
there,  and  only  think  of  the  resistless  flow  of  the 
river  which  is  always  in  your  eyes  and  ears.  This 
is  the  mysterious,  bewildering  mixture  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  guilt  and  the  consciousness  of  misery 
in  all  our  sin.  We  live  in  a  perpetual  confusion 
of  self-pity  and  self-blame.  We  go  up  to  the 
scaffolds  where  we  are  to  suffer,  half  like  culprits 
crawling  to  the  gallows  and  half  like  martyrs 
proudly  striding  to  their  stakes.  When  we  think 
of  what  sort  of  reception  is  to  meet  us  in  the 
other  world  as  the  sum  and  judgment  of  the  life 
we  have  been  living  here,  we  find  ourselves  ready, 
according  to  the  moment's  mood,  either  for  the 
bitterest  denunciation,  as  of  souls  who  have  lived 
in  deliberate  sin  ;  or  for  tender  petting  and  refresh- 
ment, as  of  souls  who  have  been  buffeted  anjd 
knocked  about  by  all  the  storms  of  time,  and  for 
whom  now  there  ought  to  be  soft  beds  in  eternity. 


54  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  [ni. 

The  confusion  of  men's  minds  about  the  judg- 
ments of  the  eternal  world  is  only  the  echo  of 
their  confusion  about  the  responsibilities  of  the 
life  which  they  are  living  now. 

Suppose  there  is  a  man  here  this  morning  who 
committed  a  fraud  in  business  yesterday.  He  did 
it  in  a  hurry.  He  did  not  stop  to  think  about  it 
then.  But  now,  here,  in  this  quiet  church,  with 
everything  calm  and  peaceful  round  him,  with  the 
words  of  prayer  which  have  taken  God  for  granted 
sinking  into  his  ears,  he  has  been  thinking  it  over. 
How  does  it  look  to  him  ?  Is  he  not  certainly 
sitting  in  the  mixture  of  self-pity  and  self-reproach 
of  which  I  spoke  ?  He  did  the  sin,  and  he  is  sorry 
as  a  sinner.  The  sin  did  itself,  and  he  is  sorry  as 
a  victim.  Nay,  perhaps  in  the  next  pew  to  him, 
or  perhaps  in  the  same  pew,  or  perhaps  in  the 
saiie  body,  there  is  sitting  a  man  who  means  to 
do  a  fraud  to-morrow.  In  him  too  is  there  not 
the  same  confusion  ?  One  moment  he  looks  it 
right  in  the  face  and  says,  "  To-morrow  night  I 
shall  despise  myself"  The  next  moment  he  is 
quietly  thinking  that  the  sin  will  do  itself  and  give 
him  all  its  advantage,  and  he  need  not  interfere 

"  If  chance  will  make  me  cheat,  why,  chance  may  crown  me, 
Without  my  stir." 

Both  thoughts   are  in   his   mind,   and   if  he   has 


III.]  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  55 

listened  to  our  service,  it  is  likely  enough  that  he 
has  found  something  in  it — something  even  in  the 
words  of  the  Bible — for  each  thought  to  feed 
upon. 

I  own  this  freely,  and  yet  I  do  believe,  and  I 
call  you  to  bear  me  witness,  that  such  self-decep- 
tion almost  never  is  absolutely  complete.  We 
feel  its  incompleteness  the  moment  that  any  one 
else  attempts  to  excuse  us  with  the  same  excuse 
with  which  we  have  excused  ourselves.  Suppose 
that  some  one  of  the  Israelites  who  stood  by  had 
spoken  up  in  Aaron's  behalf  and  said  to  Moses, 
*  Oh,  he  did  not  do  it.  It  was  not  his  act.  He 
only  cast  the  gold  into  the  fire,  and  there  came 
out  this  calf"  Must  not  Aaron  as  he  listened 
have  felt  the  wretchedness  of  such  a  telling  of  the 
story,  and  been  ashamed,  and  even  cried  out  and 
claimed  his  responsibility  and  his  sin  ?  Very 
often  it  is  good  for  us  to  imagine  some  one  say- 
ing aloud  in  our  behalf  what  we  are  silently  saying 
to  ourselves  in  self-apology.  We  see  its  thinness 
when  another  hand  holds  it  up  against  the  sun, 
and  we  stand  off  and  look  at  it.  If  I  might  turn 
again  to  Shakespeare  and  his  wonderful  treasury 
of  human  character,  there  is  a  scene  in  Hamlet 
which  exactly  illustrates  what  I  mean.  The  king 
has  determined  that  Hamlet  must  die,  and  is  just 
sending  him   off  upon  the  voyage  from  which  he 


^ 


56  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  (llL 


means  that  he  is  never  to  return.  And  the  king 
has  fully  explained  the  act  to  his  ovvn  conscience, 
and  accepted  the  crime  as  a  necessity.  And  then 
he  meets  the  courtiers,  Rosencrantz  and  Guilden- 
stern,  who  are  to  have  the  execution  of  the  base 
commission.  And  they,  like  courtiers,  try  to 
repeat  to  the  king  the  arguments  with  which  he 
has  convinced  himself      One  says — 

"  Most  holy  and  religious  fear  it  is 
To  keep  those  many  many  bodies  safe 
That  live  and  feed  upon  your  majesty." 

And  the  other  takes  up  the  strain  and  says — 

"  The  single  and  peculiar  life  is  bound. 
With  all  the  strength  and  armour  of  the  mind. 
To  keep  itself  from  'noyance  ;  but  much  more 
That  spirit  upon  whose  weal  depend  and  rest 
The  lives  of  many." 

They  are  the  king's  own  arguments.  With  them 
he  has  persuaded  his  own  soul  to  tolerate  the 
murder.  But  when  they  come  to  him  from  these 
other  lips,  he  will  none  of  them.  He  cuts  them 
short.  He  cannot  hear  from  others  what  he  has 
said  over  and  over  to  himself 

"  Arm  you,  I  pray  you,  to  this  speedy  voyage," 

So  he  cries  out  and  interrupts  them.  Let  the 
deed  be  done,  but  let  not  these  echoes  of  his  self- 
excuse  parade  before  him  the  way  in  which  he  is 
trifling  with  his  own  soul. 


III.]  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF,  5f 

So  it  is  always.  I  think  of  the  mysterious 
judgment-day,  and  sometimes  it  appears  to  me  as 
if  our  souls  would  need  no  more  than  merely  that 
voices  outside  ourselves  should  utter  in  our  ears 
the  very  self-same  pleas  and  apologies  with  which 
we,  here  upon  the  earth,  have  extenuated  our  own 
wickedness.  They  of  themselves,  heard  in  the 
open  air  of  eternity,  would  let  us  see  how  weak 
they  were,  and  so  we  should  be  judged.  Is  not 
that  partly  the  reason  why  we  hate  the  scene  of 
some  old  sin  ?  The  room  in  which  we  did  it 
seems  to  ring  for  ever  with  the  sophistries  by 
which  we  persuaded  ourselves  that  it  was  right, 
and  will  not  let  us  live  in  comfortable  delusion. 
Our  life  there  is  an  anticipated  judgment-day. 

I  doubt  not  that  this  tendency  to  self-deception 
and  apology  with  reference  to  the  sins  which  they 
commit  differs  exceedingly  with  different  men. 
Men  differ,  perhaps,  nowhere  else  more  than  in 
their  disposition  to  face  the  acts  of  their  lives  and 
to  recognise  their  own  personal  part  in  and  re- 
sponsibility for  the  things  they  do.  Look,  for  in- 
stance, at  this  Aaron  and  his  brother  Moses.  The 
two  men  are  characterised  and  illustrated  by  their 
two  sins.  The  sin  of  Aaron  was  a  denial  or  con- 
cealment of  his  own  personal  agency.  "  I  cast  it 
into  the  fire,  and  there  came  out  this  calf"  The 
sin  of  Moses,  you  remember,  was  just  the  opposite. 


58  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  [in. 


As  he  stood  with  his  thirsty  people  in  front  of  the 
rock  in  Horeb,  he  intruded  his  personal  agency 
where  it  had  no  right.  "  Hear  now,  ye  rebels  ; 
must  we  fetch  you  water  out  of  this  rock  ?  "  To 
be  sure,  in  the  case  of  Moses  it  was  a  good  act  of 
mercy  to  which  he  put  in  his  claim,  while  in 
Aaron's  case  it  was  a  wicked  act  whose  responsi- 
bility he  desired  to  avoid.  And  men  are  always 
ready  to  claim  the  good  deeds  in  which  they 
have  the  smallest  share,  even  when  they  try  to 
disown  the  sins  which  are  entirely  their  own. 
But  still  the  actions  seem  to  mark  the  men. 
Moses  is  the  franker,  manlier,  braver  man.  In 
Aaron  the  priest  there  is  something  in  that  over- 
subtle,  artificial,  complicated  character,  that  power 
of  becoming  morally  confused  even  in  the  midst 
of  pious  feeling,  that  lack  of  simplicity,  and  of  the 
disposition  to  look  things  frankly  in  the  eye  ;  in 
a  word,  that  vague  and  defective  sense  of  person- 
ality and  its  responsibilities  which  has  often  in 
the  history  of  religion  made  the  very  name  of 
priestcraft  a  reproach.  Moses  is  the  prophet. 
His  distinct  mission  is  the  utterance  of  truth.  He 
is  always  simple ;  never  more  simple  than  when 
he  is  most  profound  ;  never  more  sure  of  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  right  and  wrong,  of  honesty 
and  truth,  than  when  he  is  deepest  in  the  mystery 
of  God  ;  never  more  conscious  of  himself  and  his 


III.]  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  59 

responsibilities  than  when  he  is  most  conscious  of 
God  and  His  power. 

And  this  brings  me  to  my  last  point,  which  I 
must  not  longer  delay  to  reach.  If  the  world  is 
thus  full  of  the  Aaron  spirit,  of  the  disposition  to 
throw  the  blame  of  wrong-doing  upon  other  things 
and  other  people,  to  represent  to  others,  and  to 
our  own  souls,  that  our  sins  do  themselves,  what 
is  the  real  spiritual  source  of  such  a  tendency, 
and  where  are  we  to  look  to  find  its  cure  ?  I 
have  just  intimated  what  seems  to  me  to  be  its 
source.  It  is  a  vague  and  defective  sense  of  per- 
sonality. Anything  which  makes  less  clear  to  a 
man  the  fact  that  he,  standing  here  on  his  few  ""x 
inches  of  the  earth,  is  a  distinct  separate  being,  t^ 
in  whom  is  lodged  a  unit  of  life,  with  his  own 
soul,  his  own  character,  his  own  chances,  his  own 
responsibilities,  distinct  and  separate  from  any 
other  man's  in  all  the  world  ;  anything  that 
makes  all  that  less  clear  demoralises  a  man,  and 
opens  the  door  to  endless  self-excuses.  And  you 
know,  surely,  how  many  tendencies  there  are  to- 
day which  are  doing  just  that  for  men.  Every  man's 
personality,  his  clear  sense  of  himself,  seems  to  be 
standing  to-day  where  almost  all  the  live  forces  of 
the  time  are  making  their  attacks  upon  it.  It  is 
like  a  tree  in  the  open  field  from  which  every  bird 
carries    away    some   fruit.      The   enlargement    of 


6o  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  [lit 

our  knovt ledge  of  the  world,  the  growing  tend- 
ency of  men  to  work  in  large  companies,  the 
increased  despotism  of  social  life,  the  interesting 
studies  of  hereditation,  the  externality  of  a  large 
part  of  our  action,  the  rush  and  competition  for 
the  prizes  which  represent  the  most  material  sort 
of  success,  the  spread  of  knowledge  by  which  at 
once  all  men  are  seen  to  know  much,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  no  man  is  seen  to  know  everything ; 
all  these  causes  enfeeble  the  sense  of  personality. 
The  very  prominence  of  the  truth  of  a  universal 
humanity,  in  which  our  philanthropy  justly  glories, 
obscures  the  clearness  of  the  individual  human 
life.  Once  it  was  hard  to  conceive  of  man,  be- 
cause the  personalities  of  men  were  so  distinct 
Once  people  found  it  hard,  as  the  old  saying  was, 
to  see  the  forest  for  the  trees.  Now  it  is  just  the 
opposite.  To  hundreds  of  people  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  see  the  trees  for  the  forest  Man  is  so 
clear  that  men  become  obscure.  As  the  Laureate 
of  the  century  sings  of  the  time  which  he  so  A^ell 
knows  :  "  The  individual  withers  and  the  race  is 
more  and  more."  These  are  the  special  causes^ 
working  in  our  time,  of  that  which  has  its  general 
causes  in  our  human  nature  working  everywhere 
and  always. 

And  if  this  is  the  trouble,  where,  then,  is  the 
help?     If  this  is  the  disease,  where  is  the  cure? 


ril.]  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  6l 

I  cannot  look  for  it  anywhere  short  of  that  great 
assertion  of  the  human  personah'ty  which  is  made 
when  a  man  personally  enters  into  the  power  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Think  of  it !  Here  is  some  Aaron 
of  our  modern  life  trying  to  cover  up  some  sin 
which  he  has  done.  The  fact  of  the  sin  is  clear 
enough.  There  is  no  possibility  of  concealing 
that.  It  stands  out  wholly  undisputed.  It  is  not 
by  denying  that  the  thing  was  done  but  by  be- 
clouding the  fact  that  he  did  it  with  his  own  hands, 
with  his  own  will  ;  thus  it  is  that  the  man  would 
cover  up  his  sin.  He  has  been  nothing  but  an 
agent,  nothing  but  a  victim  ;  so  he  assures  his 
fellowmen,  so  he  assures  himself  And  now  sup- 
pose that  while  he  is  doing  that,  the  great  change 
comes  to  that  man  by  which  he  is  made  a  disciple 
and  servant  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  becomes  known 
to  him  as  a  <:ertain  fact  that  God  loves  him  indi- 
vidually, and  is  educating  him  with  a  separate 
personal  education  which  is  all  his  own.  The 
clear  individuality  of  Jesus  stands  distinctly  out  ^ 
and  says  to  him,  "Follow  me!"  Jesus  stops  in 
front  of  where  he  is  working  just  as  evidently, 
with  just  as  manifest  intention  of  calling  him  as 
that  with  which  He  stopped  in  front  of  the  booth 
where  Matthew  was  sitting  collecting  taxes,  and 
says,  "  Follow  me."  He  is  called  separately,  and 
separately  he  does  give  himself  to  Christ.    Remem- 


62 


THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  [iii. 


ber  all  that  is  essential  to  a  Christian  faith.  You 
cannot  blur  it  all  into  indistinctness  and  generality. 
In  the  true  light  of  the  redeeming  Incarnation, 
every  man  in  the  multitude  stands  out  as  every 
blade  of  grass  on  the  hillside  stands  distinct  from 
every  other  when  the  sun  has  risen.  In  this 
sense,  as  in  many  another,  this  is  the  true  light 
which  lighteneth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world. 

The  Bible   calls   it  a  new  birth,  and    in   that 
name  too  there  are  many  meanings.     And  among 
other  meanings  in  it  must  there  not  be  this — the 
separateness    and    personality    of   every    soul    in 
Christ  ?    Birth  is  the  moment  of  distinctness.    The 
^  meanest  child  in  the  poorest  hovel  in  the  city,  who 
by  and  by  is  to  be  lost  in  the  great  whirlpool  of 
human    life,  here  at  the  outset  where  his    being 
comes,  a  new  fact,  into  the  crowded  world,  is  felt 
in  his  distinctness,  has  his  own  personal  tending, 
excites  his  own  personal  emotion.     When  he  is 
born   and  when  he  dies,  but  perhaps  most  of  all 
when  he  is  born,  the  commonest,  most  common- 
place and  undistinguished  of  mankind  asserts  the 
fact  of  privilege  of  his  separateness.     And  so  when 
the  possession  of  the  soul  by  Christ  is  called  the 
"  New  Birth,"  one  of  the  meanings  of  that  name  is 
this,  that  then  there  is  a  reassertion  of  personality, 
and  the  soul  which  had  lost  itself  in  the  slavery  of 


rii.]  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  '  63 

the  multitude  finds  itself  again  in  the  obedience  of 
Christ 

And  now  what  will  be  the  attitude  of  this  man.; 
with  his  newly-awakened  selfhood,  towards  that 
sin  which  he  has  been  telling  himself  that  his 
hands  did,  but  that  he  did  not  do  ?  May  we  not 
almost  say  that  he  will  need  that  sin  for  his  self- 
identification  ?  Who  is  he  ?  A  being  whom 
Christ  has  forgiven,  and  then  in  virtue  of  that 
forgiveness  made  His  servant.  All  his  new  life 
dates  from  and  begins  with  his  sin.  He  cannot 
afford  to  find  his  consciousness  of  himself  only  in 
the  noble  parts  of  his  life,  which  it  makes  him 
proud  and  happy  to  remember.  There  is  not 
enough  of  that  to  make  for  him  a  complete  and 
continuous  personality.  It  will  have  great  gaps  if 
he  disowns  the  wicked  demonstrations  of  his  self- 
hood and  says,  "  It  was  not  I,"  wherever  he  has 
done  wrong.  No  !  Out  of  his  sin,  out  of  the  bad, 
base,  cowardly  acts  which  are  truly  his,  out  of  the 
weak  and  wretched  passages  of  his  life  which  it 
makes  him  ashamed  to  remember,  but  which  he 
forces  himself  to  recollect  and  own,  out  of  these 
he  gathers  the  consciousness  of  a  self  all  astray  with 
self-will  which  he  then  brings  to  Christ  and  offers 
in  submission  and  obedience  to  His  perfect  will. 

You  try  to  tell  some  soul  rejoicing  in  the 
Lord's  salvation  that  the  sins  over  whose  forgive- 


64  THE  FIRE  AND  THE  CALF.  [lit 

ness  by  its  Lord  it  is  gratefully  rejoicing,  were  not 
truly  its ;  and  see  what  strange  thing  comes. 
The  soul  seems  to  draw  back  from  your  assurance 
as  if,  if  it  were  true,  it  would  be  robbed  of  all  its 
surest  confidence  and  brightest  hope.  You  meant 
to  comfort  the  poor  penitent,  and  he  looks  into 
your  face  as  if  you  were  striking  him  a  blow.  And 
you  can  see  what  such  a  strange  sight  means.  It  is 
not  that  the  poor  creature  loves  those  sins  or  is  glad 
that  he  did  them,  or  dreams  for  an  instant  of  ever 
doing  them  again.  It  is  only  that  through  those 
sins,  which  are  all  the  real  experience  he  has  had, 
he  has  found  himself,  and  finding  himself  has  found 
his  Saviour  and  the  new  life. 

So  the  only  hope  for  any  of  us  is  in  a  perfectly 
honest  manliness  to  claim  our  sins.  "  I  did  it,  I 
did  it,"  let  me  say  of  all  my  wickedness.  Let  me 
refuse  to  listen  for  one  moment  to  any  voice  which 
would  make  my  sins  less  mine.  It  is  the  only 
honest  and  the  only  hopeful  way,  the  only  way  to 
know  and  be  ourselves.  When  we  have  done  that, 
then  we  are  ready  for  the  Gospel,  ready  for  all 
that  Christ  wants  to  shew  us  that  we  may  become, 
and  for  all  the  powerful  grace  by  which  He  wants 
to  make  us  be  it  perfectly. 


MAN'S  WONDER  AND  GOD'S 
KNOWLEDGE.* 

••  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts :  If  it  be  marvellous  in  the  eyes  of  tha 
remnant  of  this  people  in  these  days,  should  it  also  be  marvel- 
lous in  mine  eyes?  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." — Zechariah 
yiii.  6. 

This  is  a  very  wonderful  age  in  which  we  h've. 
So  men  are  constantly  in  the  habit  of  saying  to 
each  other.  So,  no  doubt,  men  have  always  said 
about  their  ages.  There  can  hardly  ever  have 
been  a  time  which  to  the  men  who  lived  in  it  did 
not  seem  full  of  emphatic  and  remarkable  differ- 
ences which  distinguished  it  from  all  other  times, 
and  made  it  very  wonderful  and  strange.  But 
there  is  a  second  sense  in  which  the  familiar  words 
might  be  used,  in  which  no  doubt  they  would 
peculiarly  describe  our  time.  It  is  a  wonderful 
age  not  merely  in  the  number  of  strange  unpre- 
cedented   things  which  are  happening  in    it,  the 

*  Preached  in  Westminster  Abbey,  Sunday  evening,  27th  May 
1883. 

F 


66     man's  wonder  AND  GOD'S  KNOWLEDGE,    [iv. 


strange  unprecedented  character  that  belongs  to  it 
as  a  whjle,  but  also  in  the  prominence  of  wonder 
as  an  element  in  the  view  which  it  takes  of  itsel£ 
It  is  a  wonderful  age,  because  it  is  an  age  full  of 
wonder.  It  does  not  seem  as  if  there  ever  can 
have  been  a  time  which  so  stood  off  and  looked  at 
itself,  as  it  were  ;  a  time  in  which  so  mmy  men 
lived  under  the  continual  sense  of  the  strangeness 
of  their  own  circumstances  ;  a  time  when  it  entered 
as  such  a  large  element  into  the  formation  of  the 
character  of  a  century  that  that  century  considered 
itself  to  be  exceptional  and  new,  unexplained  by 
the  centuries  which  have  preceded  it,  and  quite 
vague  as  to  the  results  that  must  follow  it  in  the 
centuries  to  come.  You  will  see  at  once  how 
important  such  an  element  must  be  in  the  char- 
acter of  any  age  which  possesses  it  if  you  remember 
what  it  is  in  an  individual.  A  child  who  thinks 
himself  singular  and  different  from  other  children 
grows  up  under  the  power  of  that  thought  more 
than  of  any  other  that  is  in  his  mind.  The  kind 
of  effect  which  it  will  have  on  him  will  depend 
upon  the  essential  nature  he  possesses.  It  will 
differ  very  greatly  in  different  children.  It  will 
make  one  child  timid  and  another  bold,  but  always 
it  will  be  the  most  effective  of  all  the  child's 
thoughts.  And  so  the  age  which  is  always  saying 
to   itself,     How  strange  I  am !    how  new !    how 


IV.]   MAN*S  WONDER  AND  i7i  d's  KNOWLEDGE.     67 

different  from  all  the  ages  which  have  gone  before  ! 
how  bewildering!  how  surprising!"  will  carry  in 
that  pervading  wonder  the  quality  which  will  in- 
fluence the  characters  of  the  men  who  live  in  it 
more  than  any  other.  No  doubt  according  to 
their  different  natures  the  influence  is  always  vari- 
ous. One  man's  wonder  is  delight,  and  another 
man's  is  consternation.  One  man,  the  more  he 
wonders,  is  inspired  with  hope  ;  another  man  sees 
in  the  mystery  about  him  nothing  but  fear.  To 
one  man  the  wonderfulness  of  his  age,  its  wonderful 
inventions,  wonderful  thoughts,  wonderful  audacity, 
wonderful  mastery  of  the  earth,  wonderful  types  of 
human  character,  is  a  constantly  elevating,  refining, 
mellowing  power ;  to  another  it  is  a  perpetual 
paralysis.  Some  men  are  made  great  and  brought 
to  their  very  best ;  other  men  are  ruined  by  it. 
But  whatever  be  the  kind  of  its  effect,  it  is  an 
element  in  the  life  and  growth  of  every  man,  this 
wonder  at  the  age  he  lives  in,  at  the  world,  at 
men,  and  at  himself;  this  wonder  which  every- 
where pervades  our  own  wonderful  age. 

And  what  is  the  reason  that  this  sense  of  the 
wonderfulness  of  life,  this  sense  of  strangeness  and 
mystery  everywhere,  has  such  different  effects  upon 
different  men,  brings  one  man  peace  and  another 
tumult,  brings  hope  to  one  and  despair  to  another? 
No  doubt   the  reason  lies  deep  in   the   essential 


68     man's  wonder  AND  GOD's  KNOWLEDGE,   [iv. 

differences  that  there  are  between  our  natures,  and 
cannot  wholly  be  stated.  But  one  cause  of  the 
difference,  and  not  the  least  one,  lies  here,  in  the 
difference  of  our  ideas  as  to  whether  there  is  any 
being  who  knows  what  we  are  every  hour  reminded 
that  we  do  not  know,  any  being  in  whose  eyes 
this  which  is  strange  to  us  is  not  strange  or 
bewildering,  but  perfectly  natural  and  orderly  and 
clear.  Two  men  alike  are  in  the  spirit  of  their 
time  ;  they  both  are  men  of  wonder ;  they  both 
confess  their  ignorance  ;  they  both  stand  marvel- 
ling at  the  quick  changes  which  are  flashing  all 
around  them,  and  at  the  dim  mysterious  infinity 
into  which  the  simplest  things  around  them 
stretch  away  and  where  their  sight  is  lost.  So 
far  they  are  alike.  But  now  to  one  of  those  men 
it  has  been  shown,  flashed  from  some  sudden 
lightning  which  has  blazed  out  of  the  cloud,  or 
dawning  slowly  to  him  out  of  the  very  substance 
of  the  cloud  itself,  out  of  something  in  the  very 
bosom  of  the  mystery  which  met  the  mystery  in 
his  own  heart  and  spoke  to  it  in  some  way  ;  it  has 
been  shown  to  one  of  them  that  there  is  a  Mind 
which  knows  what  he  is  so  hopelessly  powerless  to 
know  ;  there  is  a  God  to  whom  this  strange  be- 
wilderment is  not  strange.  Somewhere  there  is 
an  eye  which  looks  on  all  this  and  feels  no  wonder, 
because  it  looks  it  through  and  through  and  sees 


IV.]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.    69 

its  first  principles  and  final  causes  clear  as  day- 
light. The  other  man  knows  nothing  of  all  this. 
To  him  the  wonder  that  his  own  mind  feels  runs 
everywhere.  The  world  is  a  great  snarl  and 
mystery  not  merely  to  him  but  to  every  intelligence 
which  he  conceives  of  He  is  like  a  sailor  on  a 
ship  that  has  no  captain.  Not  merely  he  does  not 
know  where  the  ship  is  going  ;  nobody  knows ; 
at  least  nobody  knows  whom  he  knows.  Is  it 
not  clear  how  vast  the  difference  must  be  ?  To 
the  one  man  the  darkness  is  all  palpitating  with 
light,  the  light  of  a  knowledge  behind  it,  the 
light  of  God,  in  whom  is  no  darkness  at  all.  This 
man's  very  ignorance  becomes  the  element  in 
him  to  which  God  manifests  Himself.  Through 
that  low  and  dark  door  he  enters  the  great  high 
vaulted  world  of  faith.  His  wonder  is  the  atmo- 
sphere through  which  the  sun  shines  on  him.  The 
other  man  carries  his  wonder  as  the  earth  would 
carry  a  cloud  if  there  were  no  sun,  first  to  shine 
through  it  and  then  to  promise  that  it  shall 
ultimately  scatter.  It  cannot  help  crushing  him 
when  m  his  doubt  he  knows  of  no  intelligence  to 
which  that  which  is  dark  to  him  is  bright.  He  is 
all  helpless  in  the  present,  and  the  future  has  no 
promise  of  escape.  Oh,  my  dear  friends,  we  are 
too  ready  to  think  that  God  is  surprised  with  this 
endless  surprise  and   strangeness  which  come  to 


TO   man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge,  [nr. 

us  in  life.  Our  only  hope  of  strength  and  peace 
lies  in  knowing  that  there  is  one  whom  nothing 
disappoints  and  nothing  amazes.  He  was  not 
disappointed  when  the  good  man  died  ;  he  was 
not  amazed  when  thought  took  such  and  such  a 
sudden  turn  and  such  or  such  a  heresy  broke  out. 
Unless  we  are  sure  of  that  our  disappointment 
or  amazement  must  overwhelm  us.  Wonder  is 
so  thoroughly  a  part  of  ourselves,  and  such  a  con- 
stant experience,  that  we  can  hardly  leave  out 
wonder  from  our  thought  of  any  nature,  but  we 
know  that  from  the  completest  nature  it  must  be 
left  out,  and  some  sublime  peace  of  omniscience, 
totally  unknown  to  us,  must  come  in  in  its  place 
to  make  the  perfect  joy  of  God. 

It  is  high  time  to  turn  to  our  text.  Zechariah, 
speaking  to  the  Jews  in  their  captivity,  has  been 
foretelling  the  restoration  of  Jerusalem.  Some 
day  the  great  dear  sacred  city  is  to  shine  again 
upon  its  holy  mountain.  It  is  to  be  splendid 
with  prosperity  and  sweet  with  peace.  All  the 
signs  of  contentment  and  comfort  shall  be  seen 
there.  "  There  shall  yet  old  men  and  old  women 
dwell  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  and  every  man 
with  his  staff  in  his  hand  for  very  age.  And  the 
streets  of  the  city  shall  be  full  of  boys  and  girls 
playing  in  the  streets  thereof"  And  then,  as  if  he 
turned  and  saw  incredulity  upon   the  faces  of  the 


IV.]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.    71 


poor  prisoners  in  Babylon,  he  cries,  "  Thus  saith 
the  Lord  of  hosts,  If  it  be  marvellous  in  the  eyes  of 
the  remnant  of  this  people,  shall  it  also  be  mar- 
vellous in  my  eyes  ?  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts."  I 
do  not  want  to  preach  about  the  special  promise 
which  Zechariah  brought,  but  you  see  how  in  the 
strong  remonstrance  with  which  he  meets  their 
incredulity  there  is  the  substance  of  all  that  I  have 
thus  far  been  saying,  "  It  is  all  strange  to  you," 
God  by  His  prophet  says  to  the  captives.  "  Does 
that  prove  that  it  is  strange  to  me  ?  You  wonder 
and  cannot  believe.  Do  you  think  I  do  not  see 
deeper  than  you  do  ?  There  are  things  which  to 
you  are  strange  which  to  me  are  wholly  natural. 
You  must  not  limit  my  knowledge  by  your  won- 
der, for  if  you  do  how  can  I  give  you  that  richer 
knowledge  which  I  want  to  give  you  through  the 
higher  medium  of  faith  ?  " 

I  do  not  want  to  dwell  upon  the  special  story, 
but  only  to  catch  its  general  idea  and  see  what 
it  means  for  us.  Where  we  are  ignorant,  God  is 
wise  ;  where  we  stand  blindly  in  the  dark,  He  is 
in  the  light ;  where  we  wonder,  He  calmly  knows. 
"  God  knows,"  we  sometimes  say  in  a  light  and 
flippant  tone  when  some  one  asks  us  a  question 
that  is  too  hard  for  us.  "  What  will  become  of 
us  in  these  hard  times  ? "  one  poor  man  says  to 
another,  and  the  answer  is, "  God  kn  dws."    "  Where 


72    man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge,  [iv. 

is  our  country  drifting  ? "  ponder  two  patriots, 
and  they  turn  away  from  one  another's  ignor- 
ance with  no  other  light  to  give  each  other  but 
just,  "  Well,  God  knows."  If  the  words  have  any 
true  reality  they  ought  to  bring  the  same  sort  of 
comfort  which  Zechariah  was  trying  to  give  to  the 
captive  Hebrews  when  he  said,  "  If  it  be  marvel- 
lous in  your  eyes,  shall  it  also  be  marvellous  in  my 
eyes  ?  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

When  we  ask  what  that  comfort  is,  I  think  we 
find  it  really  comprehended  under  two  words. 
The  first  is  safety,  the  second  is  enlargement 
These  words  describe  two  needs  of  every  man's  life, 
and  these  two  needs  both  find  their  supply  in  the 
assurance  that  what  are  wonders  and  mysteries  to 
us  are  wholly  clear  to  God,  within  whose  life  our 
life  is  held.      Let  me  speak  of  the  two  in  order. 

I.  Remember,  then,  where  so  much  of  the 
sense  of  danger,  the  sense  of  unsafety,  in  life  comes 
from.  It  is  not  from  the  things  that  we  see 
and  have  known  all  along,  it  is  from  the  half- 
seen  forms  which  hover  just  upon  the  borders  of 
reality  and  unreality — things  which  evidently  are 
something,  but  of  which  we  cannot  perfectly  make 
out  just  what  they  are.  At  sea,  it  is  not  the  ship 
whose  shape  you  perfectly  discern,  and  all  whose 
movements  you  can  follow  ;  it  is  the  ship  that 
hovers  like  a  dim  ghost  in  the  fog,  moved  by  an 


IV,]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.    73 

unseen  hand — evidently  there,  but  vague  and 
mysterious  ;  that  is  the  ship  of  which  you  fear 
lest  any  moment  it  may  strike  you.  And  so  (for 
I  am  thinking  specially  about  the  dangers  that 
beset  faith,  the  dangers  of  which  every  thought- 
ful man  or  woman  is  aware  in  these  strange  days 
of  ours),  it  is  not  the  ideas  that  have  been  proved 
as  truths  and  which  have  taken  their  places  as 
distinctly-seen  parts  of  human  knowledge,  it  is 
not  those  that  in  these  days  are  making  men 
tremble  for  their  own  or  for  the  world's  religious 
faith.  Indeed,  nothing  is  more  wonderful  than  to 
see  how,  just  as  soon  as  any  idea  has  received 
demonstration,  religious  faith  has  always  found  a 
place  for  it,  perhaps  with  some  modification  of 
some  of  the  statements  which  she  had  made  about 
herself  before,  but  always  with  a  cordial  welcome 
which  took  the  new  proved  truth  into  her  struc- 
ture and  made  it  even  a  buttress  or  pillar  of  her 
strength.  It  is  not  these,  not  the  clear-seen  and 
certain  truths,  which  frighten  men  for  the  stability 
of  faith.  It  is  the  ghostly  speculations,  the 
vaguely  -  outlined  suggestions  which  hover  in 
the  misty  lights  of  dim  hypothesis.  It  is  the 
forms  which  peer  out  of  the  just-opened,  not  yet 
explored  chambers  of  new  sciences.  It  is  the 
visions  which  are  painted  in  the  glowing  words 
of  the  poets  among  the  scientists  of  what  their 


74     MAN  S  WONDER  AND  GOD's  KNOWLEDGE,    [iv. 

sciences  have  not  yet  done,  but  what  they  dream 
that  they  may  do  some  day, — these  are  the  thinjjs 
which  make  the  dim  uneasy  sense  of  danger  which 
besets  the  minds  of  Christian  behevers.  Unknown, 
before  unguessed  intimacies  of  connection  between 
the  body  and  the  soul  of  man  ;  and,  correspond- 
ing to  this,  before  unguessed  relationships  between 
the  higher  and  the  lower  orders  of  created  life  ; 
these  are  examples  of  the  suggested  truths  which 
make  men  fear  for  faith.  I  cannot  say  how  such 
suggestions  may  strike  other  men,  but  to  me  the 
case  seems  to  be  this.  In  the  first  place,  the 
ultimate  result  of  every  deeper  insight  into  the 
orderliness  of  nature,  however  for  a  time  it  may 
seem  to  stop  the  inquirer's  inquiry  short  at  the 
fact  of  order,  as  if  that  were  a  final  thing,  must  be 
to  make  more  certain  the  existence  of  an  orderer, 
to  make  mankind  more  sure  of  God.  And  if  I 
only  can  keep  sure  of  Him,  then,  since  His  very 
essence  is  omniscience,  no  revelation  with  regard 
to  His  great  world  can  startle  or  bewilder  me,  or 
give  me  for  one  moment  any  thought  of  danger. 
Behind  all  my  conceptions  and  all  other  men's 
conceptions  of  what  things  are  and  how  they 
came  to  be,  there  always  must  lie  the  true  fact 
about  things,  about  what  they  are  and  how  they 
came  to  be.  That  fact,  again,  must  correspond 
exactly   with   the   knowledge   of  the    fact    which 


rv.]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.    7s 

is  in  the  supreme  intelligence  of  Him  who  knows 
all  things  exactly  and  completely.  If  my  con- 
ception of  the  fact,  however  it  was  reached,  differs 
to-day  from  His  knowledge  of  the  fact,  danger 
must  lie  in  the  persistence  of  that  difference,  ami 
not  in  its  being  set  right.  Ignorance  is  always 
dangerous,  knowledge  never  is.  If  any  so-called 
discovery  which  men  are  teaching  me  to-day  is 
really  true,  God  has  known  it  all  along.  How- 
ever marvellous  it  is  to  me,  it  is  not  marvellous  to 
Him.  He  knew  it  when  He  made  the  mind  of  man 
with  its  capacity  of  faith  and  of  religion.  And  now, 
when  He  sees  you  and  me  trembling  for  fear  lest 
such  or  such  a  theory  may  gather  so  much  evidence 
that  we  cannot  reject  it,  but  will  have  to  own  it  to 
be  true,  it  seems  to  be  that  I  can  almost  feel  His 
presence  bending  over  us  and  hear  Him  say,  "  My 
children,  if  it  be  true,  do  you  not  want  to  believe 
it  ?  I  have  known  it  all  along.  By  coming  to  the 
truth  you  come  to  me,  who  have  held  the  truth  in 
my  bosom — nay,  by  whom  the  truth  is  true.  Do 
not  be  frightened.  I  cannot  be  taken  by  surprise. 
If  it  be  marvellous  in  the  eyes  of  the  remnant  of 
this  people,  should  it  also  be  marvellous  in  my  eyes." 
When  a  man  has  once  heard  that  voice  of  God, 
then  there  seems  to  him  only  one  safe,  prudent, 
cautious  thing  to  do,  which  is  to  look  and  listen 
everywhere    for  well -proved   truth,  however  new 


76     man's  wonder  AND  GOD's  KNOWLEDGE,    [iv, 

and    unexpected,  and    to  take  it  with    a   cordial 
welcome  wherever  it  is  found. 

I  would  not  have  you  think,  my  friends,  that 
I  am  thinking  only  of  the  things  about  which 
scholars  and  theologians  are  puzzling  their  minds. 
To  all  of  you  there  come  new  discoveries  even  in 
the  most  common  things.  You  find  that  some 
opinion  which  ycu  have  thought  all  wrong  has  in 
it  some  precious  elements  of  truth.  You  find  that 
some  man  whom  you  thought  a  poor  fool,  or  a 
base  deceiver,  is  really  noble,  generous,  self-sacri- 
ficing, wise.  You  find  that  some  Church  which 
you  despised  as  irregular,  or  condemned  with  still 
bitterer  contempt  as  vulgar  and  unrefined,  is  really 
doing  sterling  work  for  God  and  man.  You  find 
that  the  plan  for  your  soul's  education,  which  you 
have  laid  out  and  taken  for  granted,  is  going  to 
prove  impossible.  Tell  me,  will  it  not  help  you 
to  accept  the  new  knowledge  cordially  ? — will  it 
not  let  you  escape  from  your  prejudice,  and  see, 
not  merely  that  it  is  safe  for  you  to  accept  the  new 
knowledge,  but  also  that  it  is  totally  unsafe  to  re- 
fuse to  accept  it,  if  ycj  can  remember  that  God 
has  known  it  all  along,  and  therefore  that,  in  letting 
go  your  prejudice  and  cordially  stepping  forth  into 
the  new  light,  you  are  coming  nearer  to  Him  ? 
He  who  values  truth  only  as  the  way  to  God,  he 
who  counts  his  opinions  valueless  except  as  they 


IV.  1   man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.     77 

agree  with  the  infallible  judgments  of  God,  and  so 
bring  him  who  holds  them  into  the  sympathy  of  God 
and  keeps  him  there,  he  is  the  man  for  whom  all  life 
is  safe,  and  whose  quiet  faith  faces  the  changing 
thoughts  and  fortunes  of  the  world  without  a  fear. 
2.  And  then,  to  pass  on  to  our  second  point, 
such  a  man  also  is  free,  I  have  been  speaking  of 
this  already,  for  our  two  points  are  not  so  distinct 
from  one  another  as  they  seemed.  The  safety  of 
life  and  the  enlargement  or  freedom  of  life  must 
go  together.  No  man  is  safe  who  is  not  free.  No 
man  is  free  who  is  not  safe.  But  let  us  turn  our 
thoughts  now  to  this  point  of  the  enlargement  of 
a  man's  life  who  always  feels  behind  and  around 
his  own  ignorance  the  perfect  knowledge  of  God. 
Our  efforts,  our  action — indeed  our  whole  life  of 
thought  and  will — is  limited  by  that  which  we  count 
possible.  Only  a  dreamer  busies  his  brain  and 
wastes  his  time  on  that  which  he  believes  to  be 
for  ever  impossible,  by  its  very  nature,  for  any  being 
to  do.  But  it  is  evident  enough  that  the  concep- 
tion of  what  is  possible  enlarges  and  widens  as  the 
quality  of  being  becomes  higher  ;  and  so  the  loftier 
being  is  able  freely  to  attempt  things  which  the 
lower  being  is  shut  out  from  if  he  lives  only  in  the 
contemplation  of  his  own  powers,  and  does  not 
look  beyond  himself  A  great  man  comes  and 
stands,  like  Moses,  before  a  nation  of  slaves,  and 


jS     MAN^S  WONDER  AND  GOD's  KNOWLEDGE,    [iv. 

says,  **  I  will  lead  you  out  of  your  bondage."  "  It 
is  impossible,"  comes  the  answer  back  from  each 
crushed  and  broken  spirit.  Another  great  man 
stands  on  the  beach  of  the  uncrossed  ocean  and 
says,  "  I  will  sail  across  it,  and  find  land  upon 
the  other  side."  Again  the  answer  rises  from  a 
whole  unenterprising  world,  "  It  is  impossible." 
Another  great  man  says,  "  The  Church  is  all  cor- 
rupt ;  her  sins  must  be  defied,  and  she  must  be 
reformed  !  "  Another  cries  out  at  the  thought  of 
a  nation  growing  up  in  ignorance,  and  says, 
"  Each  child  must  go  to  school."  To  all  of  them 
the  mass  of  men  answer,  "  Impossible ! "  And 
the  reply  which  the  great,  bold  men  make  by  their 
lives,  if  not  by  their  lips,  is  always  the  same — 
"  To  you  it  may  be  impossible,  but  it  is  not  to  me  ; 
if  it  be  marvellous  in  your  eyes,  should  it  also  be 
in  mine  ?  "  And  soon  the  slaves  are  marching  out 
of  their  bondage  with  songs,  and  the  ship  is  sailing 
westward  through  the  unknown  seas,  and  the  re- 
formation has  begun,  and  the  school-houses  are 
blossoming  all  over  the  land.  Do  you  not  see  the 
freedom  to  attempt  which  belongs  to  the  larger 
vision  ?  And  do  you  not  see  also  that  this  free- 
dom to  attempt  is  something  which  cannot  be  con- 
fined to  the  great  men  who  see  the  visions  first? 
When  once  a  great  deed  has  proclaimed  the  possi- 
bility, a  hundred  little  ships  put  out  from  shore  ;  a 


IV.]    HAN  S  WONDER  AND  GOD'S  KNOWLEDGE.     79 

hundred  little  arms  are  raised  to  strike  the  giant 
wrong.  And  do  you  not  see,  most  of  all,  that  if 
He  who  sits  at  the  centre  of  everything,  and  sees 
the  visions  of  the  universe  with  the  perfect  clear- 
ness of  its  Maker — if  God  can  really  speak  and 
say,  *'  It  seems  impossible  to  you,  but  it  is  not  im- 
possible ;  it  is  marvellous  in  your  eyes,  but  not  in 
mine  " — if  He  can  say  that  of  any  task  which  is 
overwhelming  men  with  its  immensity,  that  word 
of  His  must  set  free  the  little  strength  of  all  of  us 
to  strike  our  little  blows,  must  enlarge  our  lives, 
and  send  them  out  to  bolder  ventures  with  earnest- 
ness and  hope. 

This  seems  to  me  to  be  what  Jesus  was  always 
doing.  Do  you  remember  how  often  He  said  to 
His  disciples  such  words  as  "  Marvel  not  at  this," 
or,  "  With  man  this  is  impossible,  but  with  God  all 
things  are  possible  "  ?  He  was  opening  new  regions 
fbi  men's  hope  and  action  by  surrounding  their 
ignorance  with  the  knowledge  of  His  Father.  To 
how  many  a  poor  soul,  then,  and  in  the  ages 
since,  who  had  dared  say  no  more  than,  "  I  will 
try  to  earn  my  dinner,  because  I  know  that  power 
is  in  me,"  Jesus  has  spoken  and  said,  "  Nay,  but 
you  must  try  to  be  good,  strong,  useful,  unselfish  ; 
you  must  try  to  save  your  soul,  because  the  God 
whose  child  you  are,  the  God  whom  I  show  to  you, 
knows  that  that  power  is  in  you"  ? 


8o     MAN  S  WONDER  AND  GODS  KNOWLEDGE,    [iv. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  illustrations  of  this  idea. 
Let  me  select  two  or  three,  and  speak  of  them 
very  briefly.  Suppose  a  man  has  dared  to  do  what 
men,  good  and  religious  men,  are  always  doing  : 
he  has  tied  the  fortunes  of  faith  and  religion  to 
some  special  statement  of  doctrine  or  some  special 
organisation  of  religious  life.  A  man  has  dared 
to  say  that  some  one  of  the  temporary  means  of 
faith  is  essential  to  the  existence  of  faith  upon  the 
earth.  No  matter  what  it  is.  One  man  says.  An 
infallible  Church  ;  another  man  says.  This  theory 
of  inspiration  ;  another  man  says.  Subscriptions 
and  assuring  oaths  ;  another  man  says,  The 
Bible  in  the  public  schools ;  another  man  says, 
A  loyal  belief  in  everlasting  punishment — every 
man  has  his  test  and  condition.  "Without  this," 
he  says,  "  faith  is  impossible."  Oh,  my  dear  friends, 
it  seems  to  me  sometimes  as  if,  through  all  these 
ages  of  Christendom,  God  had  been  trying  to  teach 
the  Christian  world  to  enlarge  its  notion  of  the 
possibilities  of  faith  by  the  perpetual  revelation  of 
His  own.  It  seems  to  me  to-day  that  God  must 
be  teaching  us  all  that  faith,  the  essential  relation 
of  the  human  soul  to  His  soul,  the  deep  rest  of  the 
child's  life  on  the  Father's  life  ;  faith,  the  recep- 
tion by  man  of  the  Word  of  God,  which  comes  to 
him  in  voices  as  manifold  as  is  the  nature  of  God 
Himself ;  that  faith,  a  thing  so  deep,  essential,  and 


IV.]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.    8 1 

eternal,  is  not  to  be  conditioned  on  the  permanence 
of  any  one  of  the  temporary  forms  in  which  it  may 
be  clothed.  If  the  future  is  like  the  past,  men 
will  come  to  disbelieve  many  things  which  they 
believe  now,  and  yet  they  will  keep  faith  in  God  ; 
men  will  come  to  believe  many  things  which  they 
disbelieve  now,  and  yet  they  will  keep  faith  in 
God.  The  earnest  believer  says,  "  I  do  not  see 
how  that  can  be  ;  it  is  too  strange  ;"  out  God 
answers  him  out  of  all  history — "  If  it  is  marvel- 
lous in  your  eyes,  must  it  also  be  marvellous  in 
mine  ? "  Only  he  who  consents  to  enlarge  his 
own  conception  of  the  possibilities  of  faith  with 
God's  can  calmly  watch  the  everlasting  growth  of 
revelation,  see  the  old  open  into  the  new,  and  yet 
know  that  the  truth  of  Christ  is  the  truth  of  eter- 
nity, and  that  when  the  soul  of  God  claimed  the 
soul  of  man  in  the  Incarnation,  it  took  possession 
of  it  for  ever  ;  and  so  Christian  faith  can  never 
die. 

There  have  been  no  nobler  servants  of  God 
and  of  humanity  than  they  whose  special  mission 
it  has  been  to  teach  this  truth  to  men.  You  will 
forgive  me  if,  standing  here  to-night,  I  pause  one 
instant  as  I  pass  to  name  with  reverence  and  love 
him  who,  for  ever  associated  with  these  venerable 
walls,  must  'Jso  stand  for  ever  in  the  minds  of 
those  who   «new  his   life  and  work   as  the  brave, 


82    man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge,  [iv. 

enthusiastic,  devoted  apostle  of  the  freedom  of 
faith,  the  freedom  of  the  faithful  man  who  feelc 
for  ever  jehind  his  own  ignorance  the  certainty  of 
God.  To  discriminate  between  the  eternal  sub- 
stance of  Christianity  and  its  tempoi  iry  forms,  to 
bid  men  see  how  often  forms  had  perished  and 
the  substance  still  survived,  to  make  men  know 
the  danger  of  imperfect  and  false  tests  of  faith,  to 
encourage  them  to  be  not  merely  resigned  but 
glad  as  they  beheld  the  one  faith  ever  casting  its 
old  forms  away,  and  by  its  undying  vitality  creating 
for  itself  new — this  was  the  noble  work  which  Dean 
Stanley  did  for  multitudes  of  grateful  souls  all  over 
Christendom.  He  led  countless  hearts  out  of  the 
surprise  and  fear  of  their  own  day  into  the  unsur- 
prised and  fearless  peace  of  faith  in  God.  Thus 
it  was  that  he  opened  wide  the  great  gates  of  the 
Divine  Life,  and  made  the  way  more  clear  for  the 
children  to  their  Father. 

Turn,  then,  to  another  illustration.  What 
great  light  our  truth  throws  upon  the  prospects 
of  a  deepened  spiritual  life  for  Christendom.  If 
we  look  around  upon  the  Christian  world  in  the 
midst  of  which  we  live,  the  sight  seems  sometimes 
very  strange.  It  seems  as  if  religious  men  had 
come  deliberately  to  the  conviction  that  only  a 
very  moderate  degree  of  consecration,  of  enthusi- 
asn:   of    nissionary  zeal,  of  seeking  after  holiness 


IV.]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge,      hi 

were  possible  in  our  condition.  The  Church  is 
secular.  The  Christian  snatches  a  few  moments 
for  his  prayer,  and  then  he  drowns  the  whole 
long  day  in  business.  The  "  religious  public " 
lives  not  like  a  leaven  in  the  great  community ; 
rather  it  is  like  a  bit  of  ornamental  decoration 
stuck  on  the  outside  of  the  great  solid  loaf  Men 
have  forgotten  how  to  lift  up  their  voices  in  the 
assemblies  of  their  fellow-men  and  tell  what  God 
has  done  for  them,  or  to  cry  out  to  Him  with 
eager  prayer.  Enthusiasm  about  the  most  in- 
finite and  exalting  things  in  all  the  universe  has 
well-nigh  gone.  You  know  the  picture  just  as 
well  as  I.  The  Church  knows  it.  The  world 
knows  it.  What  has  the  Church  to  say  about  it  ? 
In  one  tone  or  another  she  and  her  members  are 
saying  on  every  side  of  us  that  if  this  lukewarm, 
unenthusiastic,  slipshod  piety,  which  is  so  common, 
is  not  the  best  that  we  could  desire,  it  is  the  best 
which  in  the  present  state  of  things,  and  for  the 
large  majority  of  men,  is  possible.  "Just  think," 
so  seems  to  me  to  run  the  question  of  our  self- 
excuse — "  Just  think  what  this  age  is,  so  rational, 
so  business-like  ;  just  think  what  England  is, 
what  America  is,  so  self-respectful,  so  reasonable, 
so  self-contained ;  just  think  what  we  are,  so 
prudent,  so  self-conscious,  so  unemotional.  Can 
you  conceive  of  us   all   afire  as   some   commoner 


84     man's  wonder  AND  GOD^S  KNOWLEDGE,    [iv 

souls  in  ruder  ages  have  been  with  the  love  of 
God  ?  Can  you  imagine  us  praying  aloud  ?  Can 
you  think  of  these  streets  of  ours,  or  even  of 
these  churches  of  ours,  ringing  with  the  psalms  of 
men  who  have  forgotten  whether  other  men  are 
listening  or  not  while  they  pour  out  the  pent- 
up  emotion  of  redeemed  and  grateful  souls.  Is 
it  conceivable  that  with  divine  impatience  this 
prudent  people  should  come  crowding  like  some 
passionate  converts  of  old  in  other  lands  begging 
for  the  chance  to  give  their  riches  for  the  con- 
version of  the  world  to  Christ  ? "  Is  not  this 
what  we  hear  from  the  silent  lips  of  our  repressed 
and  moderate  Christianity,  my  friends  ?  To  put 
it  plainly,  is  there  not  a  quiet  assumption  pressing 
down  upon  all  of  us,  that  in  England  and  America 
in  the  nineteenth  century  Christ's  ideal  of  Chris- 
tian life  is  not  a  possibility?  Oh,  the  great  dread- 
ful weight  of  that  assumption  !  How  our  hearts 
and  our  hopes  and  our  love  and  our  joy  are  all 
crowded  down  and  crushed  beneath  its  weight ! 
How  it  haunts  the  prayers  we  pray,  the  psalms 
we  sing,  the  sermons  we  preach,  the  poor  attempts 
at  self-sacrificing  help  of  fellow -man  which  W6 
make !  What  can  lift  off  the  heavy  load  ?  No- 
thing but  a  going  forth  out  of  our  own  narrow 
idea  of  our  possibility  into  God's  great  idea,  into 
Christ's  great  idea.     What  a  refreshment  and  free- 


IV.]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.    85 

dom  there  comes  when  we  go  out  there  and  know 
that  not  one  of  our  assumptions  has  a  moment's 
tolerance  in  the  mind  of  our  Great  Master.  He 
sees  these  modern  towns  of  ours  as  truly  able  to 
be  cities  of  God  as  was  Jerusalem  upon  Mount 
Zion.  He  sees  our  life  as  capable  of  being  filled 
with  eager,  ardent,  self-sacrificing,  self- forgetful 
piety  as  the  life  of  any  poetic  people  in  any 
romantic  age.  Different,  of  course,  our  piety  must 
be.  A  city  of  God  unlike  any  other  city  where 
He  has  been  enthroned,  as  every  city  in  His  realm 
must  be  unlike  every  other,  but  thoroughly  His  ; 
not  our  own,  but  bought  with  a  price,  and  living 
cnly  for  Him  who  bought  us,  so  the  Lord  and 
Saviour  of  us  all  sees  this  hard  modern  life  of 
ours.  Not  till  we  see  it  with  His  eyes  shall  we 
cast  off  the  weight  which  lies  upon  us,  and  by  our 
consecrated  lives  help  the  religion  of  our  time  and 
of  our  land  to  be  what  He,  our  Lord  and  Saviour, 
sees  it  capable  of  being. 

The  greatest  of  all  applications  of  our  truth, 
however,  is  to  the  personal  life.  There  most  of 
all  a  man  needs  the  enlargement  which  comes  of 
always  feeling  the  infinite  knowledge  of  God 
encompassing  his  ignorance.  How  easily  with 
our  self-distrust  and  spiritual  laziness  we  shut 
down  iron  curtains  about  ourselves  and  limit  our 
own  possibilities.     And  this  is  truest  in  religious 


86     man's  wonder  AND  GOD'S  KNOWLEDGE,   [iv. 

things.  There  are  hundreds  of  people  in  this 
house  now  hearing  me  who  have,  "^ith  more  or 
less  deliberateness,  said  to  themselves  that,  how- 
ever it  might  be  with  other  men,  they  never  could 
be  enthusiastic  Christians.  You  have  looked  at 
yourself.  You  have  seen  how  quick  your  per- 
ceptions are  for  the  things  of  this  world,  how 
slow  they  are  for  the  things  that  are  unseen  and 
everlasting.  You  have  watched  your  own  joy 
in  self-reliance.  You  have  seen  what  a  proud 
man  you  are.  You  have  observed  the  strange- 
ness with  which  everything  like  an  invitation  to 
abandonment,  to  enthusiasm,  to  generous  self- 
devotion  comes  to  you  ;  and  you  have  said,  "  I 
never  can  be  a  Christian.  I  never  can  give  up 
self-reliance,  and  in  repentance  pnd  obedience  and 
trust  ask  Christ  to  save  me.  I  never  can  make 
another's  will  and  not  my  will  the  law  of  my  life. 
I  never  can  call  all  men  my  brothers  because  they 
are  Christ's.  I  cannot  picture  myself  to  myself 
upon  my  knees."  Oh,  what  multitudes  of  men 
have  said  all  that  about  themselves,  and  by  and 
by,  when  Christ  had  claimed  them  and  they  were 
wholly  His,  have  looked  back  and  seen  that  it  was 
the  old  life  and  not  the  new  life  which  was  strange; 
that  the  real  wonder  was  how,  with  the  privilege 
of  prayer,  they  ever  could  have  lived  on  prayerless 
for  so  many  days  r  nd  years  !     It  would  be  terrible 


IV,]  man's  wonder  and  god's  knowledge.    87 

if,  while  you  think  and  talk  thus  of  yourself,  God 
were  not  all  the  time  seeing  your  larger  possibili- 
ties. You  cannot  picture  yourself  to  yourself 
upon  your  knees  !  When  you  say  that,  I  seem  to 
hear  His  voice  replying  to  you  :  "  If  it  be  mar- 
vellous in  your  eyes,  should  it  be  also  marvellous 
in  mine  ?  I  know  you  better  than  you  know 
yourself.  You  say  you  have  not  the  power  of 
religion,  but  I  put  it  into  you,  and  it  is  there,  I 
never  made  a  man  without  it  ;  and  oh,  my  child,  I 
made  you.  Among  all  my  children  capable  of 
humility,  capable  of  faith  and  tenderness  and  the 
sublime  strength  which  comes  out  of  gratitude 
to  a  Redeemer  for  redemption  —  among  all  my 
children  capable  of  these,  I  did  not  make  you  like 
a  stone.  I  can  picture  you  praying,  and  when  I 
see  that  picture  I  see  your  true  self."  It  is  the 
father  crying  out  to  the  prodigal  that  his  place  is 
still  kept  for  him  at  home.  The  moment  that 
you  believe  God  and  let  Him  tell  you  what  the 
true  possibilities  of  your  nature  are,  that  moment 
you  are  free,  and,  believing  on  His  word  that  you 
can  be  a  Christian,  the  Christian  life  opens  before 
you  and  your  feet  go  in  to  its  peace  and  strength. 
It  will  not  do  for  any  one  of  us  to  make  up 
his  mind  that  he  cannot  be  any  good  and  noble 
thing  until  first  he  has  asked  himself  what  God 
thinks  of  him,  whether  it  is  as  impossible  in  God's 


88     man's  wonder  AND  GOD'S  KNOWLEDGE,    (nr, 

sight  as  it  is  in  His.  The  moment  a  man  asks 
that  question  the  walls  break  down,  the  curtains 
are  swept  back.  A  broader  hope,  a  larger  treat- 
ment of  ourselves  begin.  We  dare  to  pray,  not 
merely,  "  Lord,  make  me  that  which  I  know  I 
ought  to  be,"  but,  "  Lord,  make  me  that  which 
Thou  madest  me  for — that  which  Thou  seest  to 
be  possible  for  me — and  let  me  gladly  take  what- 
ever larger  possibility  Thou  shalt  reveal."  That 
prayer  may  we  all  have  grace  and  faith  enough  to 
pray. 


V. 

IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.» 

•*In  thy  light  we  shall  see  light." — Psalm  xxxvi.  9. 

The  picture  in  the  mind  of  him  who  wrote  this 
psalm  is  very  clear.  Men  are  looking  for  light. 
With  that  insatiable  passion  which  belongs  to 
their  humanity,  they  are  running  hither  and  thither 
seeking  to  know.  And  he  who  writes  is  in  true 
sympathy  with  their  search.  To  him  too  light 
seems  the  most  precious  thing  on  earth.  Know- 
ledge appears  to  him  the  treasure  which  is  most 
worth  possessing.  But  it  seem ;  to  him  that  there 
is  something  which  needs  to  be  suggested  to  these 
searchers  after  light.  They  appear  to  him  to  be 
questioning  this  thing  and  '.hat  thing,  as  if  the 
secret  of  its  being,  its  power  to  be  understood  and 
comprehended,  the  light  'A^ith  which  it  ought  to 
shine,  were  something  v/hich  it  carried  in  itself. 
He  sees  things  differe'.itly.     To  him  everything  is 

>  Preached   in    St.   Margaret's   Church,   Westminster,  Snodsf 
voming,  3d  June  1883. 


90  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v 

comprehensible  and  capable  of  being  understood 
only  as  it  exists  within  the  great  enfolding  pre- 
sence of  God.  To  him  it  is  only  in  their  relations 
to  the  perfect  nature  that  all  other  natures  can 
become  intelligible.  He  does  not  question  the 
flower  for  its  colour,  or  the  mountain  for  its 
majestic  form,  or  the  river  for  its  sparkling  move- 
ment, as  if  each  of  them  by  its  own  action  could 
clothe  itself  with  light  and  shine  out  of  the  dark- 
ness, a  clear  and  independent  spot  of  glory.  He 
looks  up  and  waits  and  prays  for  sunrise.  He 
expects  the  element  in  which  alone  the  mountain 
and  the  flower  and  the  river  can  display  them- 
selves. When  the  sun  shall  have  risen  and  the 
sunlight  shall  be  bathing  everything,  then  every- 
thing shall  glow  with  its  own  radiance  ;  then  he. 
can  study  everything  and  understand  it  in  its  true 
element.  Until  that  element  is  formed  around 
all  things,  there  is  darkness  everywhere.  Is  not 
this  his  meaning  as  he  stands  in  the  midst  of  the 
light-seekers  and  looks  up  to  God  and  cries,  as  if 
in  commentary  on  their  eager  searchings,  "  In 
thy  light  we  shall  see  light." 

The  truth  which  these  words  thus  include  is 
one  which  we  are  constantly  meeting,  and  which 
finds  its  illustrations  everywhere.  It  is  the  truth 
that  only  within  the  elements  where  they  belong, 
only  as  they  are  held  inside  the  atmo.sphe'e  of 


v.]  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  91 

larger  natures  to  which  they  bear  essential  and 
sacred  relationships,  can  the  finest  and  truest 
natures  of  many  things  be  understood.  See  what 
are  a  few  of  the  familiar  illustrations  of  this 
truth.  Have  you  not  each  of  you  some  friend 
who,  diill  and  dry  by  himself,  becomes  fresh  and 
sparkling  in  the  presence  and  under  the  influence 
of  some  other  friend  ?  That  other  friend  is  his 
element.  When  you  are  going  to  meet  your  dull 
companion  you  go  and  sec!:  out  first  his  elemental 
friend,  and  say  to  him,  "  Come  with  me,  for  I  can- 
not know  or  understand  this  man  except  when  you 
are  there.      In  your  light  I  shall  see  his  light." 

So  the  man  toiling  at  his  business  has  for  his 
element  the  love  for  wife  and  child  who  live  at 
home,  and  whom  he  loves.  Looked  at  apart  from 
them  his  life  is  dreary,  and  each  act  of  his  daily 
toil  is  dull  and  heavy  as  a  stone.  Looked  at  in 
the  light  of  his  love  for  them,  every  detail  of  his 
dusty  energy  glows  like  a  star. 

Or  to  take  a  wholly  different  illustration  :  a 
purpose  of  study,  a  great  conception  of  what 
study  is  for,  a  true  valuing  of  truth  either  for  its 
Dwn  pure  worth  or  for  its  noble  uses,  is  the  ele- 
ment within  which  the  drudgery  of  learning,  which 
otherwise  would  be  all  dark  and  dreary,  shines  with 
illuminations  which  make  us  its  willing  slaves. 

So  the  prevailing  moods  and  tempers  of  oui 


92  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v. 

lives  hold  within  themselves  the  specific  actions 
of  our  lives,  and  give  them  their  significance  and 
worth.  So  every  pubh'c  deed,  every  turn  of 
public  policy,  every  action  of  our  public  men, 
exists  within  the  enfolding  atmosphere  of  the 
genius  of  our  nation,  and  is  to  be  appreciated  and 
discriminated,  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
quite  different  thing  which  such  an  act  or  policy 
would  be  in  Turkey  or  in  France,  only  by  an 
understanding  of  the  national  genius  or  nature 
within  which  it  takes  place.  So  the  general's 
character  and  skill  make  up  the  element  within 
which  the  soldier's  bravery  and  labour  live.  Only 
by  knowing  the  general's  plan  of  the  campaign 
can  you  tell  what  the  soldier's  hard  work  means. 
So  the  accepted  doctrine,  if  it  be  really  and 
spiritually  accepted,  gives  colour  to  the  acts  which 
it  inspires.  Faith  is  the  element  of  works.  So 
what  we  think  of  man  decrees  what  we  shall 
think  of  men.  The  illustrations  would  be  end- 
less. Everywhere  there  is  this  enfoldment  of 
the  little  by  the  great.  Everywhere  it  is  in  the 
light  of  the  elemental  life  that  the  life  which  lives 
within  it  and  is  its  special  utterance  can  be  under- 
stood. Everywhere  the  act  in  its  true  element 
grows  live  and  buoyant  as  the  log  grows  buoyant 
in  the  water  where  it  swims. 

Do  there   not  occur  at  once  two  earnest  and 


V.)  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  93 

important  warnings  here,  which  we  may  well  notice 
as  we  pass  ?  If  this  be  true,  then  ycu  and  I  have 
no  right  to  judge  any  life  until  we  have  called 
upon  the  element  in  which  it  lives  to  come  and 
shed  its  light  upon  it.  Not  by  itself,  but  as  part 
of  some  great  purpose,  as  the  utterance  of  some 
intention,  as  the  expression  of  some  general  char- 
acter, so  we  must  estimate  and  value  every  act, 
and  all  the  active  part  of  any  fellow-creature's  life. 

And  for  ourselves,  in  our  own  lives,  surely  it  is 
good  that  we  should  be  conscious  of  and  value  the 
larger  regions  within  which  our  specific  actions  are 
comprised,  and  from  which  they  get  their  meaning. 
To  be  aware  of  purposes  and  allegiances  which 
bind  us,  which  make  our  lives  great  units,  which 
hold  us  to  the  universe  of  things,  thus  to  feel  the 
pressure  and  the  inspiration  of  our  element  about 
us,  this  surely  is  the  secret  of  the  best  success  and 
happiness  of  life. 

I  have  dwelt  thus  long  upon  these  first  defini- 
tions, because  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  in  them  there 
were  the  key  to  the  experience  of  David,  which  he 
utters  in  my  text,  and  of  which  I  wish  to  speak  to 
you  this  morning.  He  saw  the  world  all  full  of 
seekers  after  light ;  he  was  a  seeker  after  light 
himself.  What  he  had  discovered,  and  what  he 
wanted  to  tell  men,  was,  that  the  first  step  in  a 
hopeful  search  after  light  mu.st  be  for  a  man  to 


94  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v. 

put  himself  into  the  element  of  light,  which  was 
God.  The  first  thing  for  any  man  to  do  who 
wanted  knowledge  was  to  put  himself  under  God. 
to  make  himself  God's  man  ;  because  both  he  who 
wanted  to  know  and  that  which  he  wanted  to 
know  had  God  for  their  true  element,  and  were 
their  best  and  did  their  best  only  as  they  lived  in 
Him. 

If  David's  discovery  was  true,  it  was  a  great 
discovery  ;  it  was  a  discovery  which  could  never 
lose  its  value.  It  is  just  as  precious  for  the  students 
of  this  knowledge-seeking  age,  for  the  students 
assembling  in  our  universities  to-day,  as  it  was  for 
him  back  in  the  infancy  of  science,  among  the 
crude  fantastic  schools  of  old  Jerusalem.  But  I 
beg  you  to  think,  also,  what  a  noble  and  inspiring 
thought  it  gives  us  also  about  God  !  Too  often 
have  the  minds  both  of  religious  and  of  irreligious 
men  conceived  of  God  as  the  great  hinderer  of 
human  knowledge.  Even  those  men  who  thought 
they  honoured  Him  supremely  have  talked  about 
Him  £LS  if  He  loved  the  darkness  ;  they  have 
dwelt  upon  mystery  as  if  it  were  something  which 
God  treasured,  and  which  His  children  were  to 
treasure  for  itself,  as  if  they  did  not  wish  it  cleared 
up  and  made  light.  They  have  imagined  Him 
almost  standing  guard  over  whole  regions  of  know- 
ledge and  forbidding  them  to  the  impatient  intel* 


y.l  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  95 


lect  of  man.  That  is  not  the  idea  of  David  ;  that 
is  not  the  idea  of  the  Bible  anywhere.  Against 
all  the  folly  of  the  Church,  and  all  the  ignorance 
of  unbelief  which  declares  that  God  is  darkness, 
stands  up  the  protest  of  John,  who  cries,  "God  is 
light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all  ; "  and  the 
glowing  ascription  of  the  light-loving  David,  who 
declares,  "  In  thy  light,  O  Lord,  we  shall  see  light." 
I  have  talked  of  light  as  if  it  were  identical 
with  knowledge  ;  and  yet  I  am  sure  that  the  words 
make  somewhat  different  impressions  on  you,  and 
you  will  understand  that  they  are  not  entirely 
identical.  At  any  rate,  you  will  understand  that 
light  means  knowledge  only  when  knowledge  is 
most  largely  and  deeply  conceived.  There  is  a 
knowledge  which  is  not  light  but  darkness,  just  as 
there  is  a  lustre  on  the  surface  of  the  ocean  which 
keeps  you  from  seeing  down  into  the  ocean's 
depths.  There  is  a  superficial  knowledge  of  the 
things  to  which  men  give  their  study — of  nature, 
of  history,  of  literature,  of  man — which,  while  it  is 
wonderfully  accurate  in  the  facts  which  it  recites, 
does  not  help  to  reveal,  but  glosses  over  and  shuts 
away  from  our  intelligence  the  depths  and  the 
essential  glories  of  the  things  to  which  those  facts 
relate.  To  such  a  sort  of  knowledge  all  laborious 
and  minute  study  is  always  liable  ;  but  such  a  sort 
of  knowledge   is   not  light  but  darkness.      When 


96  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v. 

David  says,  then,  and  when  we  say  after  him,  that 
it  is  only  in  God's  light  that  any  man  can  see  light, 
he  does  not  mean,  we  do  not  mean,  to  say  that 
the  accumulation  of  facts  and  the  thorough  study 
of  the  surfaces  of  things  may  not  go  on  in  the 
most  godless  atmosphere  and  under  the  most  blas- 
phemous of  students.  What  he  does  mean  to  say, 
and  what  the  experience  of  man  has  borne  its  con- 
stant testimony  to,  is  this,  that  the  profoundest 
knowledge,  the  appreciation  of  the  real  meaning 
and  radiancy  of  things — that  this,  which  alone  is 
really  light,  comes  to  man  only  within  the  light  of 
God.  I  want  to  remind  you  of  three  or  four  facts 
concerning  human  knowledge  which  seem  to  me 
to  give  their  confirmation  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
old  Hebrew  singer's  song. 

I.  First  of  all  stands  the  constant  sense  of  the 
essential  unity  of  knowledge.  Men  study  many 
things.  Each  man  finds  for  a  time  contentment 
in  his  special  science  in  the  mastery  of  his  peculiar 
facts  ;  but  as  each  man  goes  deeper  into  the  know- 
ledge of  the  chosen  subject  of  his  study,  he  becomes 
aware  of  how  impossible  it  is  for  him  to  know  that 
subject  well,  unless  he  knows  far  more  than  that 
The  student  of  the  history  of  man  finds  that  this 
wonderful  theatre  of  the  earth,  upon  whose  surface 
the  long  drama  of  human  history  has  been  played, 
demands  that  it  too    must  be  understood  before 


7.]  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  07 

the  fortunes  of  the  man  whose  life  has  been  lived 
upon  its  stage  can  be  properly  valued.  The  study 
of  the  human  body  and  the  human  mind  are  in- 
complete, each  of  them  without  the  other.  Each 
branch  of  natural  science  is  twisted  and  twined  in 
with  all  the  rest.  The  most  transcendent  art  has 
the  roots  of  its  methods  in  the  human  frame,  and 
in  the  material  of  the  earth  itself  Everywhere 
this  is  the  issue  of  man's  study  as  he  goes  on 
farther  and  wider  in  any  department  ;  the  convic- 
tion that  no  art  or  knowledge  stands  alone,  that 
each  is  bound  up  in  a  whole  with  all  the  rest,  and 
that  to  study  any  art  or  any  branch  of  knowledge 
in  entire  independence  of  all  others,  is  to  come  not 
to  light  but  to  darkness — to  misconceptions  of  the 
true  nature  of  things,  and  of  the  best  conduct  of 
life.  All  truth  makes  one  great  whole  ;  and  no 
student  of  truth  rightly  masters  his  own  special 
study  unless  he  at  least  constantly  remembers  that 
it  is  only  one  part  of  the  vast  unity  of  knowledge, 
one  strain  in  the  universal  music,  one  ray  in  the 
complete  and  perfect  light 

2.  A  second  fact  with  regard  to  human  know- 
ledge is  its  need  of  inspiration  and  elevation  from 
some  pure  and  s;?iritual  purpose.  It  is  a  fact 
which  is  assured  bj-  all  the  testimony  of  man's  ex- 
perience of  study,  that,  not  upon  the  lower  grounds 
of  economy  and  the  usefulness  of  knowledge  to 

H 


98  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v. 

man's  physical  and  social  wants,  but  by  some  sense 
of  a  preciousness  inherent  in  itse  f,  of  a  fitness 
between  it  and  the  nature  of  man,  of  a  glory  in 
seeking  it  and  a  delight  in  finding  it  for  its  own 
pure  sake,  that  only  so  have  all  the  great  revela- 
tions of  truth  come  to  mankind.  The  lower 
motives  come  in,  no  doubt,  to  lend  their  aid.  The 
student  finds  a  pleasure  in  the  thought  that  his 
discovery,  if  he  can  accomplish  it,  will  make  him 
and  his  brethren  safer  and  more  comfortable  in 
their  daily  life  ;  but  the  most  patient  search  and 
the  most  enthusiastic  seizure  of  knowledge  does 
not  come  from  those  motives  alone.  The  know- 
ledge which  is  sought  as  light  must  be  sought  with 
an  enthusiasm  which  gets  its  fire  from  the  pure 
value  of  the  knowledge  for  its  own  pure  sake.  If 
among  the  young  men  who  in  our  various  colleges 
are  pursuing  their  higher  education  there  are  any 
who  are  destined  genuinely  to  enlarge  the  bounds 
of  human  knowledge,  and  to  be  recognised  as  light- 
givers  by  their  fellow-men,  this  we  are  sure  of  con- 
cerning them,  that  they  are  among  those  who  know 
something  of  the  true  passion  of  knowledge  ;  they 
are  of  those  to  whom  the  opening  doors  of  study 
bring  exaltation  and  enthusiasm  and  delight ;  for 
it  is  only  to  such  that  light  is  given,  and  so  it  :s 
only  such  that  can  give  light  to  their  fellow-men. 
3.   I    think  that  another  characteristic  of  the 


V.)  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  99 


best  search  after  wisdom  is  the  way  in  which  it 
awakens  the  sense  of  obedience.  I  will  not  attempt 
to  explain  its  meaning,  but  no  man  who  thinks 
carefully  and  wisely  will  fancy  that  he  has  ade 
quately  explained  it  when  he  has  attributed  to 
mere  superstition  that  sense  which  is  always  reap- 
pearing in  the  thought  of  man,  that  the  knowledge 
which  is  highest  in  its  nature  and  which  it  is  most 
necessary  for  man  to  have,  always  comes  to  man 
by  revelation,  and  can  be  attained  only  by  the 
learning  man's  obedience  to  the  revealing  power. 
Very  vaguely,  very  impersonally  often,  this  idea 
has  been  conceived  and  stated.  Sometimes  it  has 
seemed  to  mean  no  more  than  that  man,  in  order 
to  understand  Nature,  must  be  in  sympathy  with 
her  and  watch  her  ways  instead  of  forcing  her 
action  into  his  ways.  At  other  times  it  has  taken 
sharp,  crude,  intense  shapes  like  those  which  it  has 
assumed  when  man,  abandoning  all  use  of  his  own 
powers,  has  seemed  to  think  that  there  was  nothing 
for  him  to  do  but  to  stand  listening  before  a  smoky 
oracle,  or  to  peer  into  the  entrails  of  slain  birds  in 
order  to  know  the  truth.  But  still,  however  vaguely 
or  however  crudely  it  has  shown  itself,  the  fact  is 
very  certain  that  man,  when  he  has  been  moved 
most  earnestly  to  seek  for  truth,  has  always  thought 
of  himself  and  talked  of  himself  as  of  one  who 
must  be  obedient  to  something,  somebody,  some 


lOO  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v. 

power  who  held  the  truth  which  he  desired,  and 
who  either  would  give  it  or  could  give  it  only  to 
the  obedient  heart.  In  other  words,  all  of  man's 
loftiest  search  for  knowledge  has  always  seemed 
to  be  aware,  not  merely  of  two  parties  to  the  great 
transaction,  but  also  of  a  third — not  merely  of  a 
knowledge  to  be  sought  and  of  a  man  to  win  it, 
but  also  of  a  knowledge-giver,  who  was  to  stand 
between  the  treasure  and  the  needy  human  life, 
and  give  to  the  obedient  humanity  the  boon  it 
sought. 

4.  Closely  allied  to  this  fact  is  the  other  one 
which  yet  remains  to  be  mentioned  with  regard  to 
the  search  of  man  after  knowledge,  which  is  the 
constant  tendency  which  it  has  always  shown  to 
connect  itself  with  moral  character.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  say  that  the  whole  affair  of  knowledge- 
seeking  is  a  question  of  the  intellect — easy  enough 
to  say  that  a  clever  libertine  or  a  bright  drunkard 
can  learn  and  teach  the  facts  of  science  or  of  his- 
tory as  perfectl)''  as  if  his  life  were  pure  and  sober ; 
but  yet  the  fact  is  clear  that  mankind  in  all  ages 
has  tended  to  believe  that  moral  purity  and  up- 
rightness were  genuine  and  necessary  elements  in 
the  most  perfect  insight  even  into  the  problems  of 
the  world's  construction  or  of  the  history  of  man, 
— that,  at  any  rate,  however  mere  facts  might  be 
learned    by  any  acute  and  patient  observer,  the 


v.]  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  lol 

meanings  of  those  facts,  the  soul  and  inner  sub- 
stance of  the  things  they  studied,  could  only  come 
to  men  who  loved  the  right  and  tried  to  do  it,  and 
kept  their  hearts  pure,  unselfish,  and  serene  with 
truth.  All  the  old  initiations  to  the  mysteries  of 
knowledge  bore  witness  to  this  instinct.  The  man 
to  whom  the  deepest  known  secrets  of  things  were 
to  be  opened  to-morrow  must  be  purified  to-night 
by  lustrations  that  should  signify  his  inner  bap- 
tism. I  do  not  ask  now  what  was  the  philosophy 
which,  more  or  less  consciously,  underlay  this 
demand.  I  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  some  sort  or 
assertion  of  the  essential  and  inviolable  unity  of 
our  human  life,  some  sort  of  protest  against  the 
separation  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  in 
man,  as  if  such  a  separation  made  us  two  men  and 
not  one.  What  I  want  now  to  notice  is  merely 
the  fact,  the  abundantly  witnessed  fact,  that  man 
in  all  times  has  had  this  feeling  about  the  highest 
and  completest  knowledge,  that  one  of  its  neces- 
sary conditions  was  morality,  that  only  the  pure 
in  heart  could  see  the  fullest  light. 

See,  then,  what  we  have  reached.  These  fou 
conditions  belong  everywhere  and  always  to  the 
true  light -seeker — the  sense  of  the  unity  of 
knowledge,  the  perception  of  the  preciousness  and 
glory  of  k  lowledge  for  its  own  pure  sake,  the  con- 
sciousness  of  discipleship    and    loyalty,    and    the 


102  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v, 

persuasion  of  the  need  of  moral  fitness  for  the 
highest  insight.  In  various  proportions,  in  all 
degrees  of  clearness  or  of  cloudiness,  these  are  the 
convictions  which  have  always  filled  the  minds 
and  inspired  the  souls  of  the  seekers  after  light 
all  through  the  world,  all  through  the  ages. 
The  Hindu  dreamer  waiting  for  his  vision,  the 
young  Jew  at  the  footstool  of  his  rabbi,  the  Greek 
listening  for  his  oracle,  the  monk  over  his  manu- 
script, the  modern  investigator  of  Nature  and 
her  wondrousness,  the  college  student  in  his  class- 
room— is  it  not  true  that  all  of  them  are  men  of 
light  and  not  of  darkness  just  in  proportion  as 
they  keep  alive  and  precious  these  profound  per- 
suasions, the  unity  of  truth,  the  preciousness  and 
dignity  of  truth,  the  need  of  obedience,  and  the 
sacred  worth  of  purity.  To  him  who  lives  in  all 
of  these  persuasions,  holding  them  all  not  merely 
as  proved  propositions,  but  as  making  together  the 
element  in  which  all  his  thought  and  study  lives  ; 
to  him  everything  grows  luminous  and  opens  its 
heart,  and  in  the  light  of  these,  his  four  convictions, 
he  sees  the  light  of  all  the  things  with  which  he 
deals. 

And  what  then  ?  Is  there  no  one  conception  in 
which  these  four  convictions  all  unite,  and  in  whose 
embrace  they  become  not  scattered  discoveries 
or  results  of  various  experience,  but  parts  of  one 


V.J  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  103 

complete  idea  which  needs  and  which  harmonises 
them  all.  If  it  be  true  that  in  the  thought  of 
God  most  simply  and  broadly  apprehended  in  the 
thought,  that  is,  of  a  great,  strong,  loving  Father, 
who  knows  all  truth,  and  loves  all  men,  and  feeds 
men  with  truth  as  a  father  feeds  his  children  with 
bread,  making  them  with  each  new  food  fit  for  a 
richer  food  which  He  has  still  to  give  them — these 
four  conceptions  find  their  meeting -place  ;  if  as 
the  young  light-seeker  goes  with  these  four  con- 
victions working  together  in  his  soul  they  almost 
necessarily  seek  one  another  and  unite  into  what  is 
at  first  the  dream,  and  by  and  by  becomes  the  faith 
of  a  personal  presence,  lofty,  divine,  loving,  and 
wise  ;  if  this  is  true,  have  we  not  reached  as  the  re- 
sult of  all  this  long  analysis  something  like  that 
which  David  puts  with  such  majestic  simplicity  in 
his  glowing  verse.  The  combination  of  these  con- 
sciousnesses makes,  almost  of  necessity,  the  con- 
sciousness of  God.  As  they  are  necessary  to  the 
search  for  light,  so  is  the  God  in  whom  they  meet 
the  true  inspirer  and  helper  of  the  eternal  search. 
You  see  how  great  the  doctrine  is.  It  is  no  low 
and  unintelligible  and  incredible  pretension,  claim- 
ing that  only  to  the  holders  of  certain  special 
d-Ctrines  can  the  truths  of  science  or  of  history 
be  made  known.  It  is  the  lofty  assertion  of  the 
divinest   necessity  of  the  human  soul,  that  only 


104  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v. 

under  the  care  and  guidance  of  the  God  in  whom 
abide  the  unity  and  preciousness  of  truth,  and 
whose  pure-hearted  disciple  and  obedient  servant 
man,  the  searcher  for  Hght,  can  be, — in  and  under 
Him  alone  can  the  great  fulness  of  truth  be 
known  or  understood. 

I  have  tried  thus  to  analyse  the  causes  which 
underlie  the  necessity  of  man  for  God  in  the  search 
after  the  truest  knowledge  with  regard  to  the  earth 
he  lives  in,  or  the  history  of  man,  or  his  own  na- 
ture. But,  after  all,  in  every  such  necessity  there 
is  much  that  entirely  eludes  analysis,  and  is  recog- 
nisable only  by  the  consciousness.  It  is  in  what 
we  must  always  recur  to  as  the  filial  conscious- 
ness, the  sense  of  childhood,  that  man's  perception 
of  God  always  takes  its  clearest  shapes.  And 
when  I  try  to  describe  to  myself  this  thought  of 
David  about  man's  seeing  all  light  in  the  light  of 
God,  no  picture  like  the  picture  of  a  true  and 
docile  childhood  seems  to  me  to  express  it.  A 
child  in  his  father's  house  learns  everything  within 
the  intelligence  and  character  of  his  father,  who 
has  provided  all  things  there,  and  is  perpetually 
throwing  light  upon  their  proper  use.  Everything 
has  its  own  qualities,  but  those  qualities  are  made 
distinct  and  vivid  to  the  child  by  their  relation  to 
the  master  of  the  house.  Not  purely  in  themselves 
but  in  his  father's  use  of  them  and  in  their  relation- 


7.1  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD,  SOS 

ship  to  him  does  the  child  come  to  know  the  tools 
of  the  workshop,  the  furniture  of  the  parlour,  and 
all  the  apparatus  of  domestic  life.  So,  I  believe 
it  is  with  the  child's  knowledge  of  the  larger  house, 
the  world-house,  of  which  God  is  the  Father,  The 
young  clerk  in  the  counting-house,  the  young 
sailor  on  the  seas,  the  young  student  at  his  books, 
the  young  mechanic  at  his  bench,  each  of  them 
finds  the  things  which  make  his  world  shine  forth 
with  new  clearness  and  with  new  glory,  if  he  dares 
to  think  of  himself  as  God's  child,  and  of  these 
things  with  which  he  has  to  do  as  the  furniture  of 
his  Father's  house  and  the  means  for  the  doing  of 
his  Father's  will.  No  channel  of  direct  investiga- 
tion is  closed  up.  Still  the  dictionary  must  be 
questioned  for  the  language,  and  the  market 
studied  for  the  laws  of  trade,  and  the  rock  in- 
quired of  by  the  hammer  and  the  microscope,  and 
the  sky  and  winds  and  ocean  scanned  with  watch- 
ful eye  ;  but  over  and  around  and  through  and 
through  the  whole  process  of  inquiry,  giving  it 
dignity,  hopefulness,  dearness,  and  meaning,  is 
thrown  the  pervading  consciousness  that  it  is 
always  the  child  inquiring  of  the  Father's  things, 
and  with  the  Father's  watchfulness  and  care  and 
love  behind  him. 

Look  at  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  and  you  will 
see  exactly  what  I   mean.      He  knew  the  streets 


io6  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v. 

of  Jerusalem  and  the  lanes  of  Galilee  and  the  his- 
tory of  His  mysterious  Hebrew  people,  and  the 
hearts  of  the  lilies  and  the  souls  of  men  ;  but  He 
knew  them  all  differently  from  the  way  in  which 
the  Hebrew  scribes  and  scholars  knew  them.  Tc 
Him  they  were  all  full  of  light.  There  is  no  other 
description  of  His  knowledge  that  can  tell  its 
special  and  peculiar  character  like  that.  It  was 
all  full  of  light.  And  the  other  peculiarity  of  it 
was  just  as  clear.  It  was  full  also  of  God.  He 
knew  everything  as  God's  child  in  God's  house. 
The  history  of  the  prophets  and  the  heart  of  the 
lily  both  meant  something  about  His  Father 
These  two  peculiarities  belonged  together.  The 
world  was  full  of  light  to  Him  because  it  was  full 
of  God.  It  was  God's  light  in  which  He  saw  the 
deeper  light  in  everything. 

Just  think  of  this,  just  think  of  how,  this  being 
true  of  Jesus,  the  more  He  saw  of  all  the  world, 
the  more  His  Father's  light  must  have  become 
real  to  him,  and  then  consider  if  there  is  not  here 
the  key  to  that  difficult  question,  which  perplexes 
us  all,  the  question  of  how  we  can  keep  from  out- 
growing our  religion  as  we  grow  up  from  child- 
hood into  manhood,  and  the  world  grows  more 
complicated  around  us.  The  child  is  full  of 
reverent  and  happy  faith.  God  is  to  him  every- 
where.     He  pra\'s  as  naturally  as  ^e  talks.      He 


v.]  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  107 

worships  as  spontaneously  as  he  sings.  But  by 
and  by  he  is  a  child  no  longer.  The  silver  gates 
are  open  and  the  whole  world  lies  beyond.  The 
elaborate  manifold  delightful  life  of  manhood 
takes  him  in.  A  thousand  things  to  know,  a 
thousand  things  to  do  invite  him.  The  simplicity 
of  life  is  broken  into  most  bewildering  multiplicity. 
Then  is  the  time  when  the  boy's  faith  almost 
always  halts  and  is  puzzled,  when  very  often  it 
falters  and  falls.  What  can  preserve  it  ?  What 
can  carry  it  safely  through  that  first  perplexing 
acquaintance  with  the  immensity  and  variety  of 
life  and  art  and  science,  and  bring  it  out  a  broader 
and  a  stronger  faith  beyond  ?  Nothing,  surely, 
except  a  demonstration  by  his  faith  of  its  capa- 
city to  comprehend  and  make  its  own  all  this 
bewilderingly  various  life.  Let  the  boy  just 
coming  to  be  a  man  discern  that  the  God  in  whom 
he  has  believed  in  his  small  boyish  way  is  the  real 
element  by  which,  in  which  stars  shine,  states 
grow,  and  all  the  complicated  life  of  men  goes  on, 
and  must  he  not  then  grasp  his  faith  anew  as  he 
goes  on  to  greater  things  and  the  larger  relation- 
ships which  are  awaiting  him  ?  Let  the  growing 
youth,  as  he  passes  through  the  door  into  the 
new  world,  see  the  candle  which  he  carries,  and 
which  he  is  just  about  to  throw  away  because  he 
thinks  its  work  is  done  with  the  lighting  of  his 


io8  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [v 

nursery  where  he  is  to  Hve  no  longer,  gradually 
open  and  expand  until  it  seems  to  be  the  sun 
which  lightens  everything,  and  without  which 
nothing  can  be  bright  or  beautiful,  and  then  must 
he  not  grasp  his  candle  the  tighter  as  the  fascinat- 
ing richness  of  the  world  begins  to  display  itself 
before  him  ?  There  is  no  other  hope.  No  man 
carries  his  robe  with  him  through  the  river  unless 
he  believes  that  he  shall  need  to  wear  it  on  the 
other  side.  No  man  really  preserves  his  religion 
simply  from  the  memory  of  how  it  used  to  help 
him.  It  must  help  him  now.  No  man  keeps  his 
boy's  faith  unless  it  opens  new  greatness  to  him 
as  he  grows  older,  and  shows  him  how  his  full- 
grown  manhood,  like  his  earliest  childhood,  cannot 
do  without  it. 

Picture  Jesus  of  Nazareth  set  down  in  Rome 
with  all  the  flashing  splendour  of  imperial  power 
all  around  him  ;  or  in  Athens,  with  the  wisdom 
of  the  philosophers  on  every  side.  Would  the 
young  Jew  have  cast  his  faith  away  ?  Too  real 
for  him  the  visions  that  had  come  to  him  in 
Nazareth  !  Too  real  for  him  the  glory  of  His 
Father,  which  had  filled  His  Father's  house  I  He 
would  have  laid  fresh  hold  upon  that  truth  and 
love  which  he  had  never  so  needed  until  now. 
He  would  have  stood  undazzled  in  the  Roman 
glory,  unpuzzled   in  the  Grecian  wisdom,  because 


v.J  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  log 

he  would  have  known  that  in  his  heart  he  carried 
the  light  by  which  they  should  give  light  to  him. 
It  would  have  been  like  David  calmly  saying  in 
the  presence  of  the  terrors  of  Goliath,  "  The  Lord 
that  delivered  me  out  of  the  paw  of  the  lion  and 
out  of  the  paw  of  the  bear,  he  will  deliver  me  out 
of  the  hand  of  this  Philistine." 

There  are  men  whose  faith  thus  goes  with  them 
and  becomes  the  power  of  inspiration  for  every- 
thing they  do.  Everything  else  shines  with  the 
light  and  works  with  the  strength  of  their  religion. 
I  hope  that  many  of  you  have  read  the  interesting 
book  which  gives  an  account  of  the  Personal  Life 
of  David  Livingstone.  It  is  a  noble  record  of  a 
noble  history.  But  the  great  beauty  of  his  life  as 
it  comes  out  there  is  in  the  centralness  of  his 
religion.  Two  of  the  greatest  interests  of  the 
human  mind  and  soul  were  always  with  him — 
science  and  philanthropy.  He  opened  the  desert 
and  traced  the  mysterious  rivers,  and  watched  the 
wanderings  of  the  stars.  He  trampled  out  the 
slave  trade  in  whole  regions  of  its  worst  brutality; 
but,  at  the  heart  of  them,  the  man's  science  and 
philanthropy  both  got  their  light  from  his  religion. 
He  was  first,  last,  and  always  and  above  all  things 
the  Christian  and  the  Christian  Missionary,  carry- 
ing the  glorious  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  to  the 
most  miserably  benighted  of  His   children.     He 


no  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  [t. 

refuses  to  be  called  the  mere  scientist  or  the  mere 
philanthropist.  In  the  light  of  God  he  sees  light, 
and  he  makes  light  in  the  mystery  and  sin  of  the 
Dark  Continent.  Therefore  his  fame  has  among 
the  scientists  and  the  philanthropists  its  own 
peculiar  beauty. 

The  knowledge  of  God  lies  behind  everything, 
behind  all  knowledge,  all  skill,  all  life.  That  is 
the  sum  of  the  whole  matter.  The  knowledge  of 
God  !  And  then  there  comes  the  great  truth, 
which  all  religions  have  dimly  felt,  but  which 
Christianity  has  made  the  very  watchword  of  its 
life,  the  truth  that  it  is  only  by  the  soul  that  God 
is  really  known  ;  only  by  the  experiences  of  the 
soul,  only  by  penitence  for  sin,  only  by  patient 
struggle  after  holiness,  only  by  trust,  by  hope,  by 
love  does  God  make  himself  known  to  man.  So 
may  he  give  us  all  the  grace  to  know  Him  more 
and  more.  There  is  an  evidence  of  religion  which 
may  be  written  down  in  books  and  learned  from 
books,  and  when  it  once  is  learned  it  is  all 
mastered.  That  evidence  is  good  ;  but  there  is 
another  evidence  of  religion  which  is  never 
mastered  and  exhausted.  It  grows  and  deepens 
for  ever  and  for  ever.  As  the  man  becomes  more 
pure,  more  penitent,  more  sensitive  to  the  least 
touch  of  sin,  more  passionately  eager  to  be  good, 
so  does  he  grow  for  ever  more  and  more  sure  of 


v.]  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD.  Ill 

God.  And  to  him,  thus  growing  ever  surer  of 
God,  the  world  he  Hves  in  becomes  clothed  with 
an  ever  diviner  light,  and  the  pursuit  of  truth 
becomes  more  and  more  full  for  ever  of  enthu- 
siasm and  of  hope. 

Of  heaven  it  is  written  that  "  the  Lord  God 
Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the  light  thereof." 
I  should  be  glad,  indeed,  if  anything  we  have 
thought  to-day  could  make  us  see  that  this  part 
of  heaven  at  least  may  be  begun  below  ;  that  not 
merely  the  earth  we  live  in  but  our  own  especial 
life — our  work,  our  study,  our  profession,  our  daily 
toil — may  live  already  in  the  light  of  God,  and 
become  earnest  and  dear  and  sacred  because  of 
the  depth  and  richness  of  our  love  and  conse- 
cration to  Him  and  to  His  Son,  who  shows  Him 
to  us  I 


VI 

THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.* 

"And  he  said,  My  grace  is  sufEcient  for  thee." —  2  Cor.  xii.  9. 

These  words  were  spoken  to  St.  Paul  but  not  to 
him  alone.  They  came  to  St.  Paul  out  of  a  mysteri- 
ous vision.  They  have  come  to  many  and  many 
a  Christian  out  of  the  experiences  of  his  daily  life, 
which,  as  he  looked  at  them  in  the  light  of  God, 
have  seemed  to  him  to  be  more  mysterious  and 
impressive  than  any  vision  which  could  be  set 
before  the  most  astonished  eyes.  They  have 
come  as  the  total  result  of  life,  its  spiritual  issue 
and  result,  to  thoughtful  men  who,  tired  and  dis- 
satisfied in  the  details  of  living,  have  asked  them- 
selves and  asked  God  for  some  great  comprehen- 
sive meaning  of  it  all.  To  such  men  there  has 
come  down  from  God  his  explanation :  "  My 
grace  is  sufficient  for  thee."  The  meaning  of  life, 
of  its  happinesses  and  its  sorrows,  of  its  successes 

'  Preached  at  St.  Mark's  Church,  Kenningtoo,  Londoo,  Sunday 
evening,  3d  June  1883. 


VI.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  1 13 

and  its  disappointments,  is  this,  that  man  must  be 
fastened  close  to  God  and  Hve  by  the  divine  life 
not  his  own,  by  the  divine  life  made  his  own 
through  the  close  binding  of  the  two  together  by 
faith  and  love. 

I  want  to  speak  to  you  about  this  great  Christian 
conception  of  human  life  to-night.  And  first  of  all, 
I  want  to  ask  you  to  remember  what  a  need  thea^e  is 
for  any  true  life  that  it  should  have  some  general 
conception  of  itself  within  which  all  its  special 
activities  should  move  along  and  do  their  work. 
What  the  skin  is  to  the  human  body,  holding  all 
the  parts  of  the  inner  machinery  compactly  to 
their  work  ;  what  the  simple  constitution  is  to  a 
highly-elaborated  state,  enveloping  all  its  functions 
with  a  few  great  first  principles  which  none  of 
those  functions  must  violate  or  transcend, — such 
to  the  manifold  actions  of  a  man  is  some  great 
simple  conception  of  what  life  is  and  what  it 
means,  surrounding  all  details,  giving  them  unity, 
simplicity,  effectiveness.  The  degree  in  which  the 
life,  living  in  its  details,  is  immediately  and  con- 
sciously aware  of  its  enveloping  conception  may 
vary  very  much  indeed.  Some  of  the  lives  around 
which  it  is  folded  most  compactly,  to  which  it  is 
giving  the  noblest  unity  and  effect,  are  almost  un- 
aware of  it,  and  would  have  to  stop  and  re-collect 
their  consciousness  before  they  could  give  you  a 

I 


114  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  [vi. 

clear  statement  of  what  was  their  enveloping  idea 
of  life.  Often  in  children,  often  in  the  most  child- 
like people,  the  conception  is  doing  its  wr.rk, 
holding  the  life  together,  even  when  it  is  most 
entirely  unrecognised.  The  degree  of  conscious- 
ness may  vary,  but  more  and  more  the  worth,  the 
dignity,  the  beauty,  the  usefulness  of  human  lives 
seem  to  depend  on  the  existence  of  some  sur- 
rounding purpose  or  idea  which  makes  each  life  a 
unit  and  a  force.  Here  is  a  man  all  quavering 
and  scintillating  and  palpitating  with  brightness : 
every  act  he  does,  every  word  he  says,  shines 
with  genius  ;  but  every  act,  every  word,  shines 
separate  and  alone ;  each  is  a  single,  separate 
point  of  electricity,  shining  the  more  brilliantly 
just  because  of  its  isolation.  Here  is  another  man 
of  far  less  brilliancy,  but  of  a  clear  and  ever- 
present  sense  of  what  life  means  ;  his  electricity 
does  not  sparkle  at  brilliant  points,  but  it  lives 
unseen  and  powerful  through  everything  he  does 
and  is,  like  the  electric  presence  which  pervades 
a  healthy  human  body.  My  friends,  is  it  not 
wonderful  how  strongly  we  come  to  feel,  how  per- 
fectly clear  in  us  in  course  of  time  grows  the 
conviction,  that  to  the  second  man,  not  to  the  nrst, 
the  world  must  look  for  good  and  constant  power. 
Is  it  not  wonderful  with  what  ever- increasing 
certainty  of  instinct  we  ourselves,  as  life   grows 


Yl.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD,  1 15 

more  serious  and  full  of  exigency,  turn  away  from 
the  first  man  and  turn  to  the  second  in  our  need  ? 
I  have  wanted  to  speak  thus  of  the  need  of 
some  great  comprehensive  conception  of  life, 
before  I  came  to  the  special  conception  of  it  which 
is  in  the  words  which  God  spoke  to  St.  Paul. 
"  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee,"  He  declared. 
That  man's  life  is  to  have  abundant  supply  for  all 
it  needs,  to  be  rich  enough,  safe  enough,  strong 
enough,  and  yet  that  all  this  abundance  is  not  to 
come  by  or  in  itself,  but  is  to  be  its  portion, 
because  the  human  life  itself  is  part  and  parcel  of 
the  divine  life,  held  closely  and  constantly  upon 
the  bosom  of  the  life  of  God, — that  is  the  great 
conception  of  humanity  and  its  condition  which 
these  deep  words  involve.  See  how  they  must 
exclude  these  two  ideas  which  are  for  ever  hauntinsr 
human  souls, — the  first,  that  there  is  no  sufficiency 
for  man  ;  the  second,  that  man  carries  his  sufficiency 
within  himself  How  these  two  ideas  rule  together, 
dividing  among  themselves  the  hearts  of  men. 
The  timid,  tired,  hopeless,  discouraged  men  go 
about  saying,  "  Human  life  a  predestined  failure : 
full  of  wants  for  which  there  is  no  supply,  of 
questions  for  which  there  is  no  answer.  So, 
whoever  made  him,  wherever  he  has  come  from, 
here  o:  the  disappointing  earth  there  is  this  ever- 
lastingly disappointed  man."     And   then,  among 


ii6  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  [vi. 

such  men,  close  by  their  side,  the  brave  self-con- 
fident, self-trustful  men  go  about  saying,  "  Man 
ought  to  be  satisfied  ;  man  must  be  satisfied  ;  nay; 
man  is  satisfied  in  himself.  Let  him  but  put 
forth  all  his  powers  and  he  shall  supply  all  his 
own  needs  and  answer  all  his  own  questions." 
And  then,  among  these  everlasting  wailings  and 
boastings,  in  the  midst  of  this  mingled  self-pity 
and  self-conceit,  the  voice  of  God  comes  down 
declaring,  "  Nay,  both  are  wrong :  you  must  be 
satisfied,  but  you  must  be  satisfied  in  me  ;  you 
must  have  sufficiency,  but  my  grace  must  be 
sufficient  for  you." 

I  think,  then,  that  you  can  see  how  in  these 
words  thus  understood,  in  a  conception  of  life  like 
this  there  are  two  propositions  which  meet  directly 
and  directly  contradict  the  two  tendencies  of 
human  thought  with  which  we  are  most  familiar 
in  these  days  of  ours.  You  see  what  these  two 
tendencies  are.  They  are  very  familiar ;  they 
meet  us  everywhere  ;  they  are  here  in  our  Sunday 
evening  church.  One  tendency  is  to  despair  of 
satisfaction  ;  the  other  tendency  is  to  discover 
satisfaction  in  man  alone.  As  I  go  through  the 
crowds  which  fill  our  crowded  century  I  hear 
these  two  voices  on  every  side  of  me.  One  voice 
says,  "  Alas,  alas  !  we  want  to  know,  but  there  is 
no   voice  to  speak   to  us   and    to   enlighten   our 


VI.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  \\^ 

ignorance.  We  want  to  love,  but  every  object  of 
love  on  which  we  let  our  affection  fasten  fails  us. 
We  want  to  work,  but  there  are  no  instruments 
md  no  materials  fine  enough  to  give  embodiment 
to  these  dreams  that  are  in  us.  Life  is  hopelessly- 
insufficient  for  man."  And  then  out  of  the  same 
crowd  the  other  voice  cries  out,  "  Hurrah,  hurrah  ! 
man  is  sufficient  for  himself!  See  how  he  is  find- 
ing the  answers  to  his  questions  everywhere  ;  and 
when  his  questions  prove  unanswerable,  see  how 
he  is  continually  finding  out  that  his  question  is  a 
delusion,  that  such  a  being  as  he  is  ought  not  to 
want  to  ask  such  questions,  that  there  are  no 
answers  to  such  questions,  at  least  none  that  it  is 
conceivably  possible  or  really  desirable  for  him  to 
know  !  "  Were  ever  such  despair  of  man  and  such 
triumph  in  man  met  before  as  are  met  now  in 
these  days  of  ours  ?  Tell  me,  are  not  these  really 
the  two  things  that  men  are  saying  over  to  them- 
selves about  the  problem  of  existence  ?  Is  not  the 
question  of  mankind's  life,  as  we  hear  its  ordi- 
nary statements,  apparently  settling  down  to  this, 
whether  it  will  be  possible  for  man  to  live  with  a 
permanent  conviction  either  that  there  is  in  the 
world  about  him  no  true  correspondent  and  answer 
to  the  deeper  parts  of  his  nature,  or  else  that  his 
nature  and  the  world  have  in  themselves  all  that 
his  deepest  needs  require  ? 


Ii8  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  [vi. 

Remember,  this  is  not  a  question  merely  of  the 
time  at  large  and  its  philosophies  ;  it  is  not  a 
problem  which  one  sees  rising  like  a  dark  cloud 
as  he  looks  abroad  over  the  puzzled  schoolrooms 
and  the  busy  workshops  of  his  fellow-men.  It  is 
a  problem  which  meets  us  all  whenever  our  own 
personal  life  is  deeply  stirred.  A  great  change 
comes  in  your  life,  something  that  rends  your 
whole  being  down  to  the  bottom  as  an  earthquake 
opens  the  rock  ;  your  life  is  torn  to  its  very 
depths  ;  you  can  no  longer  live  satisfied  with  the 
mere  pleasant  sight  of  the  green  grass  and  flowers 
which  grow  upon  the  surface  ;  you  must  look 
down  and  see  what  there  is  in  at  the  heart  of 
things.  And  then — oh,  my  dear  friends,  do  not 
full  many  of  you  know  it  ? — to  the  human  heart  all 
torn,  distressed,  bewildered,  there  comes  first  of 
all  this  problem.  What  shall  I  do  ?  Shall  I  make 
up  my  mind  that  there  is  no  rest,  no  peace,  no 
sufficient  object  for  my  trust — that  my  demand 
for  them  is  an  impertinence  ?  or  shall  I  make  my- 
self my  own  sufficient  strength,  and  find  my  rest 
and  peace  and  trust  in  cultivating  and  admiring 
my  own  life  ? 

To  such  an  alternative  what  can  we  say  ?  To 
the  first  side  of  it  I  think  that  there  can  be  no 
doubt  what  muat  be  said.  Man  cannot  rest  in 
the  settled  conviction  of  insufficiency.      There  is  a 


VI.]  TEE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD,  llj 

deep  and  everlasting  and  true  conviction  in  man 
that  he  has  no  power  or  need  in  his  nature  for 
which  there  is  not  a  correspondent  and  supply 
somewhere  possibly  within  his  reach.  The  powei 
of  adoring  love,  of  which  man  is  distinctly  con- 
scious, brings  him  assurance  that  there  is  a  being 
worthy  of  such  love.  The  power  and  need  to 
trust  implicitly  will  not  be  answered  that  there  is 
no  strength  so  strong  that  man  may  give  to  it 
implicit  trust.  The  everlasting  questions  will 
everlastingly  demand  their  answers  and  believe  in 
the  possibility  of  finding  them  till  they  are  found. 
This  is  to  me  conclusive.  I  can  conceive  of  man's 
dressing  up  almost  any  insufficient  thing  in  the 
pretence  of  sufficiency  and  making  believe  to  him- 
self that  he  is  satisfied  ;  but  that  he  should  finally 
and  absolutely  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
must  content  him  in  everlasting  discontent,  and 
cease  to  ask  and  cease  to  struggle  out  of  pure 
despair,  that  is  something  which  nothing  that  I 
have  ever  read  or  seen  or  felt  of  human  nature 
gives  me  the  power  to  believe. 

And  what,  then,  is  the  chance  of  the  other  side 
of  the  alternative,  that  man  shall  find  humanity 
as  he  discerns  it  in  himself  and  in  his  fellow-men 
sufficient  for  his  powers  and  needs  ?  There  is  only 
one  thing  which  everlastingly  makes  that  impos- 
sible, and  that  is  the  strange  fact  to  which  all  the 


I20  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  (vi. 

history  of  man  bears  witness,  that  man,  though 
himself  finite,  demands  infinity  to  deal  with  and 
to  rest  upon  ;  he  claims  to  have  relations  with  the 
infinite.  That  fact  is  borne  testimony  to  by  ail 
the  ages ;  that  fact  is  the  perpetual  witness  of 
the  consciousness  in  man's  heart  that  he  is  the 
child  of  God.  The  child  may  be  reminded  every 
moment  of  his  limitations  and  his  youth,  and  yet 
he  always  mounts  up  to  claim  the  largeness  of  his 
father's  life  for  himself.  And  so  man,  the  more 
you  make  him  feel  his  finiteness,  so  much  the 
more  obstinately  will  he  insist  on  his  right  to  a 
potential  possession  of  the  infinite.  The  perpetual 
witness  to  this  truth  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
facts  in  human  history.  You  never  can  rule  lines 
around  one  region  in  the  realm  of  knowledge  and 
say  to  man,  "  Know  that.  That  is  the  limit  of  what 
you  possibly  can  know."  The  very  demand  is  a 
challenge.  He  will  rub  out  your  lines  ;  he  will 
break  down  your  walls  ;  and,  with  what  perhaps 
seems  pure  wilfulness,  but  what  is  really  a  convic- 
tion that  there  is  no  knowledge  in  the  universe 
from  which  he  is  essentially  and  eternally  shut 
out,  he  will  choose  the  very  things  which  you  have 
told  him  he  can  never  know  to  exercise  his  knowing 
faculty  upon.  What  truly  enthusiastically  human 
man  will  tolerate  the  drawing  of  any  line,  how- 
ever far  away,  outside  of  which  he  shall  be  bound 


ri.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  121 

to  believe  that  human  enterprise  shall  never  go? 
Who  will  let  any  limit  mark  for  him  the  certain 
boundary  beyond  which  no  yet  more  wonderful 
Invention  shall  be  devised,  and  no  yet  more  beauti- 
ful miracle  of  art  flower  out  of  the  rich  ground  of 
man's  exhaustless  fancy  ?  What  man  ever  truly 
loves  and  sets  a  limit,  consciously  and  absolutely, 
to  the  loveliness  of  that  which  he  is  loving  ?  The 
love  that  defines  the  limits  of  its  idol's  loveliness 
is  not  entire  love  ;  pure  love  lives  in  its  power  of 
idealising,  and  loves  the  infinite  in  the  finite  type 
to  which  it  gives  its  homage.  So  everywhere  there 
comes  the  testimony  of  this  endless  reach  of  man 
after  the  infinite,  and  of  his  inability  to  rest  upon 
anything  less.  Who  that  with  the  best  human 
ambition  is  seeking  after  character  can  fix  himself 
a  goal  and  say,  "  That  is  as  pure,  as  good,  as  true 
as  it  is  possible  for  me,  a  man,  to  be  ?"  Who  does 
not,  must  not  see  the  distance  stretching  far  away, 
past  anything  that  even  his  imagination  can  de- 
fine ?  There  comes  no  real  content  to  the  seeker 
after  goodness  until,  behind  all  the  patterns  which 
hold  themselves  up  to  him  with  pride  and  boasting 
in  their  practicalness,  at  last  he  hears  the  voice 
of  the  sublime  impracticable  standard  far  out  be- 
yond them  all  calling  to  him,  "  Be  ye  perfect  as 
your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect."  Then  the 
finitL  has  heard  the  voice  of  the  infinite  to  which 


122  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  [vx 

it  belongs,  to  which  it  always  will  respond,  and 
straightway  it  settles  down  to  its  endless  journey 
and  goes  on  content. 

These  are  the  views  of  human  life  which  seem 
to  me  to  show  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  that 
man  should  finally  reconcile  himself  either  to  de- 
spair or  to  self-satisfaction.  It  is  in  views  like 
these  that  I  find  my  assurance  in  such  days  of 
doubt  about  the  nature  and  the  destiny  of  man 
as  these  through  which  we  are  passing  now.  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  absolutely  certain  that  if  there 
is  in  man  a  real  essential  belonging  with  God,  if 
in  a  true  and  indestructible  sense  he  is  God's  child, 
then  the  reaching  of  the  child's  soul  after  the 
Father's  soul,  of  the  human  soul  after  the  divine 
soul,  must  be  a  perpetual  fact ;  it  never  can 
be  stopped.  Agnosticism,  Nescience,  Pessimism, 
Secularism  must  be  all  temporary  phenomena ; 
none  of  them  can  be  the  settled  and  perma- 
nent condition  of  the  human  soul  if  man  is  the 
child  of  God.  If  he  is  not,  if  there  is  no  divine 
relationship  in  him,  then  one  is  ready  to  accept 
whatever  comes  ;  for  who  cares  whether  a  beast 
that  is  but  a  beast  dreams  that  he  is  an  angel  or 
with  a  bitter  wisdom  knows  his  beasthood.  Super- 
stition or  despair  will  matter  little  in  a  man  who 
has  no  God.  No  !  I  cannot  picture  man  with  a 
God  quieting,  stupefying  his  restless  filial  heart  so 


VI.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  123 

that  no  throb  or  leap  of  it,  no  sudden  access  of 
fih'al  consciousness  shall  ever  take  him  by  surprise 
as  he  lives  in  the  perpetual  presence  of  his  Father's 
works  and  love.  Some  sudden  turn  of  the  world- 
child  around  some  unexpected  corner  of  the  won- 
drous house  will  thrill  the  soul  with  its  profoundest 
consciousness.  If  man  is  God's  child,  then  man 
cannot  permanently  be  atheistic.  This  poor  man 
or  that  may  be  an  atheist,  perhaps  ;  this  child  or 
that  may  disown  or  deny  his  father  ;  but  the  world- 
child,  man,  to  him  the  sense  that  he  was  not 
made  for  insufficiency  and  the  sense  that  he  is 
not  sufficient  for  himself,  these  two  together  will 
always  bring  him  back  from  his  darkest  and  re- 
motest wanderings,  and  set  him  where  he  will  hear 
the  voice  which  alone  can  completely  and  finally 
satisfy  him  saying,  "  My  grace  is  sufficient  for 
thee." 

And  now,  if  this  is  where  the  soul  of  man  must 
rest,  we  want  to  turn  and  see  most  seriously  what 
is  the  rest  which  man's  soul  will  find  here  ;  what 
will  it  practically,  actually  be  for  a  man  when  the 
secret  and  power  of  his  life  is  that  he  is  resting  on 
the  sufficiency  of  the  grace  of  God  ?  We  may  say 
various  things  about  it ;  and  the  first  and  simplest 
and  most  important  of  them  all  is  this,  that  the 
grace  of  God,  on  which  a  man  relies,  must  be  a 
perpetual  element  in  which  his  life  abides,  and  not 


124  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD,  [vi. 

an  occasional  assistant  and  supernumerary  called 
in  at  special  emergencies  when  it  is  needed.  You 
see  the  difference.  I  say  to  one  man,  "  Who  is 
your  sufficiency  ?  On  whom  do  you  rely  for  help  ?" 
and  his  reply  is,  "  God."  Very  confidently  and 
earnestly  comes  his  reply.  "  God,"  he  declares. 
But  when  he  answers  "  God,"  somehow  it  sounds 
to  me  exactly  as  if  he  thought  that  God  was  a  man 
in  the  next  house,  or,  if  you  please,  the  captain  of 
a  garrison  in  the  castle  on  the  hill — some  one, 
some  thing,  which  was  at  hand,  and  at  his  call  when 
it  was  wanted.  I  say  to  another  man,  "  What  is 
your  sufficiency  ?  Whom  do  you  trust  in  ?"  and 
he  answers,  "God  ;"  and  then  it  sounds  to  me  as 
if  the  sunlight  talked  about  the  sun,  as  if  the  stream 
talked  of  the  spring  that  fed  it,  as  if  the  blood 
talked  of  the  heart  that  gave  it  life  and  movement, 
as  if  the  plant  talked  of  the  ground  which  it  was 
rooted  in,  as  if  the  mountain  talked  of  the  gravita- 
tion that  lived  in  every  particle  of  it  and  held  it 
in  its  everlasting  seat ;  nay,  shall  we  not  say  what 
is  the  simplest  and  the  truest  thing  ?  as  if  the  child 
talked  of  his  father  whose  life  lived  in  every  act 
of  his  protected  life — in  whom  (what  wondrous 
depth  there  is  in  those  deej  words  !),  "  in  whom  he 
lived  and  moved  and  had  his  being." 

Do  you  not  see  the  difference  ?    Take  special 
instances.     Here  is  our  bewilderment  about  truth : 


VI.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  125 

God,  who  knows  everything,  is  our  sufficiency  in 
our  own  insufficiency,  we  say.  But  how  ?  One 
doubter,  when  his  hard  question  comes,  says  with 
a  ready  confidence,  "  I  will  go  and  ask  God,"  and 
carries  off  his  problem  to  the  Bible,  to  the  closet, 
as  if  he  went  to  consult  an  oracle,  and  as  if,  when 
he  had  asked  and  got,  or  failed  to  get,  an  answer, 
he  would  leave  the  oracle  off  in  the  wood  and 
come  back  to  the  town  again,  and  live  his  worldly 
life  there  on  his  own  resources  until  another 
question  too  hard  for  his  poor  wisdom  should 
come  up.  I  do  not  say  that  that  is  wholly  bad  ; 
but  surely  there  is  something  better.  Another 
doubter  meets  his  puzzling  question  ;  and  the 
utterance  of  his  sense  of  God's  sufficiency  is  simply, 
"  God  krjows  the  explanation  and  the  answer.  I 
do  not  know  that  God  will  tell  me  what  the  answer 
is.  Perhaps  He  will,  perhaps  He  will  not ;  but 
He  knows."  The  knowledge  that  is  in  the  father 
— so  close  and  constant  and  real  is  the  identity 
of  life  between  the  two  —  the  knowledge  that  is 
in  the  father  is  the  child's  knowledge,  even  though 
the  child  does  not  know  the  special  things  which 
the  father  knows.  Not  merely  there  is  an  open 
road  from  the  child's  ignorance  to  the  father's 
wisdom  ;  the  child's  ignorance  lies  close  bosomed 
upon  the  father's  wisdom,  beats  and  throbs  with 
its  pulses,  and  lives  with  its  life. 


126  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  [vi. 

And  so  it  is  with  regard  to  activity  and  effi- 
ciency as  well  as  with  regard  to  knowledge.  One 
man  says,  "  Here  is  a  great  work  *o  be  done  ; 
God  will  give  me  the  strength  to  dc  it  ; "  and  so 
when  it  is  done  it  looks  to  him  most  like,  and  he 
is  most  apt  to  call  it,  his  work.  Another  man 
says,  "  Here  is  this  work  to  be  done  ;  God  shall 
do  it,  and  if  He  will  use  me  for  any  part  of  it, 
here  I  am.  I  shall  rejoice  as  the  tool  rejoices  in 
the  artist's  hand."  When  that  work  is  finished, 
the  workman  looks  with  wonder  at  his  own  achieve- 
ment, and  cries,  "  What  hath  God  wrought ! " 

Everywhere  there  is  this  difference.  One  sufferer 
cries,  "Lord,  make  me  strong;"  another  sufferer 
cries,  "  Lord,  let  me  rest  upon  thy  strength."  Do 
you  say  they  come  to  the  same  thing  ?  Yes,  if 
the  doing  of  the  task,  the  bearing  of  the  pain,  is 
everything.  Yes,  if  the  only  object  is  that  the 
ship  may  not  founder  and  the  back  may  not  break  ; 
but  if,  beyond  this,  there  is  hope  and  purpose  that 
the  man  who  does  the  task  or  bears  the  load  shall 
himself  become  Godlike  in  his  doing  or  his  suffer- 
ing, then  no  mere  deposit  of  the  strength  of  God 
can  do  the  work — only  the  ever-open  union  of  his 
life  with  God's,  which  makes  the  two  lives  really 
one,  so  that  the  power  that  is  in  God  is  not  made 
the  man's  by  being  transferred  from  God's  to  him, 
but  is  his  because  it  is  God's. 


VI. J  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  I27 

Always  there  are  these  two  kinds  of  men.  The 
picture  that  was  seen  ages  ago  in  the  valley  of 
ElaK  and  which  is  written  in  the  second  book  of 
Samuel,  is  always  finding  its  repetition  in  the 
world.  David  and  Goliath  are  perpetual :  proud, 
self-reliant,  self-sufficient  strength,  the  big  hard 
muscles,  the  tremendous  bulk,  the  gigantic  armour 
of  the  Philistine  on  the  one  side  ;  and  on  the  other 
the  slight,  weak  Judean  youth,  with  nothing  but  a 
sling  and  stone,  with  his  memories  of  struggles  in 
which  he  has  had  no  strength  but  the  strength  of 
God,  and  has  conquered,  with  no  boast,  nothing 
but  a  prayer  upon  his  lips.  These  two  figures,  I 
say,  are  everywhere  ;  they  are  confronting  each 
other  in  every  valley  of  Elah  all  over  the  world  : 
the  power  of  confident  strength  and  the  power  of 
weakness  reliant  upon  God.  Goliath  may  thank 
his  gods  for  his  great  muscles  ;  it  is  a  strength 
that  has  been  handed  over  to  him  by  them  ;  but 
it  is  a  strength  which  has  been  so  completely 
handed  over  to  him  that  he  now  thinks  of  it,  boasts 
of  it,  uses  it  as  his.  David's  strength  lies  back  of 
hhn  in  God,  and  only  flows  down  from  God  through 
him  as  his  hand  needs  it  for  the  twisting  of  the 
sling  that  is  to  hurl  the  stone. 

Oh,  how  the  multitude  stand  waiting  round 
every  valley  of  Elah  where  any  David  and  Goliath 
meet !  how  the  Philistines  shout  for  the  battle  as 


128  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  \\x. 

they  see  their  champion  step  forth  !  how  the  Israel- 
ites tremble  and  their  hearts  sink  when  they  see 
how  weak  their  shepherd  -  boy  looks  !  how  the 
Philistines  turn  and  flee  when  their  giant  falls ! 
how  the  Israelites  first  gaze  astonished  and  then 
surround  him  with  shoutings  as  David  comes  back 
with  the  head  of  the  Philistine  in  his  hands  !  and 
yet  how  the  same  scene  is  repeated  over  and  ovei 
again  for  ever :  the  arrogance  of  the  Philistines 
and  the  timidity  of  the  Israelites  wherever  anew 
power  confident  in  self  meets  weakness  reliant 
upon  God,  in  any  broad  field  or  obscure  corner  of 
the  world. 

It  is  sad  to  see  even  Christian  men  and  times 
fall  into  the  old  delusion.  The  Christian  Church 
— so  reads  its  history  to  me — seems  to  have  been 
far  too  often  asking  of  God  that  He  should  put 
His  power  and  His  wisdom  into  her,  and  make  it 
hers  ;  far  too  seldom  that  He  should  draw  her  life 
so  close  to  His  that  His  wisdom  and  power,  kept 
still  in  Himself,  should  be  hers  because  it  is  His. 
The  demand  for  an  infallible  Church,  for  a  com- 
prehensive and  final  statement  of  all  that  it  is 
possible  for  man  to  know  about  God,  for  an  au- 
thoritative oracle  of  religious  truth — a  demand 
which  haunts  not  merely  the  hills  of  Rome,  but 
even  the  broad  open  Protestant  pastures  of  our 
own  communion — the  fictions  of  priestly  authority 


VI.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  129 

for  forgiving  sin,  for  putting  grace  into  sacraments, 
— what  are  all  these  but  the  everlasting  craving 
for  a  deposit  of  truth  and  power  instead  of  a  vital 
union  by  love  and  obedience  with  Him  in  whom 
truth  and  power  eternally  reside — the  everlasting 
wish  to  be  a  reservoir  instead  of  a  river?  The 
Church  of  Christ  to-day  upon  the  earth,  neither  in 
her  individual  members  nor  in  any  aggregation  of 
her  ignorance  to  make  wisdom  in  any  conceivable 
council  or  synod,  knows  the  absolute  truth  with 
regard,  let  us  say,  to  the  future  destiny  of  men 
who  in  this  life  live  wickedly  and  die  rebels  against 
God.  Does  it  seem  to  you  as  if  it  were  a  dread- 
ful thing  that  Christ's  Church  should  be  in  ignor- 
ance about  such  an  important  thing  as  that  ?  Not 
if  you  really  know  how  near  Christ's  Church  is  to 
the  heart  of  Christ ;  not  if  you  understand  that 
she  is  joined  to  Him  as  part  of  His  own  life,  so 
that  His  knowledge  of  what  are  the  awful  secrets 
of  the  future  is  enough  for  her,  and  she  may  be 
content  with  His  assurance  that,  He  being  what  she 
knows  Him  to  be,  it  must  be  a  terrible  thing,  and 
a  thing  whose  consequences  cannot  die  speedily  or 
easily,  for  any  soul  to  grieve  His  heart,  which  is 
infinite  love,  or  to  disobey  His  will,  which  is  eter- 
nal righteousness.  Our  Lord's  disciples  asked  Him 
to  promise  them  that  they  should  sit  on  thrones, 
and  He  turned  them  away  and  said,  "  Ye  know  not 

K 


I30  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  [vi. 

what  ye  ask,"  But  they  asked  Him  to  teach  them 
to  pray,  and  instantly  His  teaching  came  :  "  After 
this  manner  pray  ye  :  Thy  kingdom  come  ;  thy 
will  be  done.  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread." 
He  would  do  nothing  that  should  enthrone  their 
lives  in  what  might  for  a  moment  seem  to  be  self- 
sufficient  power  ;  He  would  do  everything  that 
should  fasten  their  life  to  His  Father's  life,  with 
the  continual  pressure  of  continual  need.  Oh,  that 
the  Church  and  the  Christian  might  have  learned 
from  the  old  story  of  the  Lord's  treatment  of  those 
first  disciples  what  kind  of  prayers  He  always  loves 
to  have  them  pray,  and  what  kind  He  will  always 
answer. 

I  find  in  all  the  life  of  Jesus  the  perfect  illus- 
tration and  elucidation  of  all  I  have  been  saying, 
of  all  that  I  want  you  to  remember  and  take  with 
you  as  the  fruit  of  having  listened  to  me  this 
evening.  Jesus  never  treated  His  life  as  if  it  were 
a  temporary  deposit  of  the  divine  life  on  the  earth, 
cut  off  and  independent  of  its  source  ;  he  always 
treated  it  as  if  it  lived  by  its  association  with  the 
Father's  life,  on  which  it  rested.  "  Of  that  day 
and  hour  knoweth  not  the  Son,  but  the  Father," 
He  did  not  hesitate  to  say ;  and  the  Father's 
knowledge  was  enough  for  Him.  "  Now,  O 
Father,  glorify  thou  me,"  He  cried.  I  dare  not 
try  to  unravel  the  whole  mystery,  to  adjust  tha 


VI.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  131 

whole  theology ;  but  this  I  cannot  doubt  as  1 
read  these  infinite  pages  which  are  ever  new,  that 
Jesus  was  always  full  of  the  child-consciousness ; 
lie  always  kept  his  life  open  that  the  Father's  life 
might  flow  through  it.  When  he  lay  prostrate, 
tired  out,  broken  down  on  the  mountain  or  in  the 
garden,  it  was  not  that  He  might  re-collect  His 
shattered  strength  and  be  Himself;  it  was  that 
in  the  silence  and  the  struggle  the  clogged  com- 
munication might  be  broken  clear,  and  God  flow 
freely  into  Him  again.  "  Not  my  will  but  thy 
will,  O  my  Father  ; "  that  was  the  triumph  of  the 
garden.  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  for- 
saken me?"  that  was  the  agony  of  the  cross. 

What  Jesus  wanted  for  Himself  He  wants  for 
you  and  me  who  are  His  disciples.  Not  self- 
completeness.  When  He  calls  us  to  be  His,  He 
sees  no  day,  even  on  to  the  end  of  eternity,  in 
which,  having  trained  our  characters  and  deve- 
loped our  strength,  he  shall  send  us  out  as  you 
dismiss  in  the  morning  from  your  door  the 
traveller  whom  you  have  kept  all  night,  and  fed 
and  strengthened  and  rescued  from  fatigue,  and 
filled  with  self-respect.  No  such  day  is  to  come 
for  ever.  An  everlasting  childhood  !  A  perpetual 
dependence !  That  is  our  calling.  And  with 
that  calling  in  our  minds  how  much  that  seemed 
mysterious  grows  plain  to  us.      If  He  is  moving 


132  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  [VL 

our  life  up  close  to  His,  henceforth  to  be  a  part 
of  His,  so  that  motive,  truth,  standards,  hopes 
everything  which  is  in  Him  shall  freely  flow  from 
Him  to  us,  what  wonder  is  it  if,  in  order  that  that 
union  may  be  most  complete,  He  has  to  break 
down  the  walls  that  we  have  built  around  our- 
selves, which  would  be  separations  between  Him 
and  us.  The  going  down  of  the  walls  between 
our  house  and  our  friend's  house  would  be  music 
to  us,  for  it  would  be  making  the  two  houses 
one.  The  going  down  of  the  walls  between  our 
life  and  our  Lord's  life,  though  it  consisted  of 
the  failure  of  our  dearest  theories  and  the  dis- 
appointment of  our  dearest  plans,  that  too  would 
be  music  to  us  if  through  the  breach  we  saw  the 
hope  that  henceforth  our  life  was  to  be  one  with 
His  life,  and  all  His  was  to  be  ours  too. 

And  how  clear,  with  this  truth  before  us,  would 
appear  the  duty  that  we  had  to  do,  the  help  that 
we  had  to  give  to  any  brother's  soul  for  which  we 
cared.  Not  to  make  him  believe  our  doctrine  ; 
but  to  bring  him  to  our  God.  Not  to  answer 
all  his  hard  questions  ;  but  to  put  him  where  he 
could  see  that  the  answer  to  them  all  is  in  God. 
Not  to  make  him  my  convert,  my  disciple  ;  but 
to  persuade  him  to  let  Christ  make  him  God's 
child.  Oh,  my  dear  friends,  if  that  were  what  we 
were  seeking  concerning  one  another,  friend  seek- 


VI.]  THE  SUFFICIENT  GRACE  OF  GOD.  133 

ing  it  for  friend,  father  and  mother  seeking  it  for 
children ;  if  that  were  what  we  were  seeking,  there 
would  be  richer  harvests  for  the  Lord  ! 

Through  all  eternity  that  grace  of  God,  that 
sufficient  grace,  shall  flow  into  the  open  hearts  of 
God's  redeemed,  making  them  strong  and  brave 
for  all  the  vast  works  which  they  shall  have  to  do 
for  Him  and  for  His  kingdom.  It  seems  as  if  it 
would  be  enough  for  this  life,  as  if  this  life  would 
be  well  spent,  if,  as  the  result  of  all  of  it,  by  many 
lessons,  many  trials,  many  failures,  the  soul  whose 
strength  is  in  entire  dependence  simply  learned 
and  carried,  perfectly  learned,  with  it  across  the 
river  the  lesson  that  the  soul  of  man  cannot  live 
except  in  resting  on  the  soul  of  God,  and  per- 
petually gathering  into  it  supplies  of  His  sufficient 
grace.  That  lesson  may  we  learn  in  any  way  in 
which  Christ  sees  good  to  teach  it  to  us. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.^ 

"And  there  was  great  joy  in  that  city." — Acts  viii.  81 

The  city  was  Samaria,  and  the  great  joy  was  the 
fruit  of  the  first  preaching  of  Christ  there.  The 
disciples  had  been  scattered  by  persecution  from 
Jerusalem ;  and  one  of  them,  Philip,  had  come  down 
to  the  city  which  the  Jews  despised,  and  there  he 
had  told  the  people  the  truth  which  the  Jews  re- 
jected. All  around  him  was  the  misery  and  sin 
of  a  great  city.  He  offered  them  Christ.  He 
told  them  of  Him  who  had  come  to  relieve  misery 
and  forgive  sin.  As  a  symbol  of  the  new  life 
which  he  told  them  of,  he  touched  some  of  their 
sick  people,  and  their  health  came  back  to  them  : 
many  that  were  taken  with  palsies  and  that  were 
lame  were  healed  ;  into  many  a  house  where 
there  had  been  only  darkness  he  brought  light. 
The  brightness  ran  along  the  streets.     Not  merely 

1  Preached  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  London,  on  the  morning  of 
Hospital  Sunday,  loth  June  1SS3, 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  135 

a  few  scattered  souls  caught  the  new  inspiration  ; 
it  seemed  to  fill  the  air  and  flow  through  all  the 
life  of  the  whole  town.  And  there  was  great  joy 
in  that  city  I 

There  is  something  clear  and  peculiar  in  this 
joy  of  a  whole  city  over  the  new  faith.  We  can 
all  feel  it  when  a  thought  or  an  emotion  which 
has  lingered  in  a  few  minds  starts  up  and  takes 
possession  of  a  whole  community.  It  is  as  when 
a  quiver  of  flame  which  has  lurked  about  one  bit 
of  wood  at  last  gets  real  possession  of  the  heap  of 
fuel,  and  the  whole  fireplace  is  in  a  blaze.  There 
came  a  time  when  Christianity,  which  had  lived 
in  scattered  congregations  and  in  the  hearts  of 
devout  believers,  at  last  seized  on  the  prepared 
mind  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  all  Europe  was 
full  of  Christianity.  So  it  is  something  new,  it  is 
a  phenomenon  possessing  its  own  interest  and  de- 
manding its  own  study,  when  beyond  Christian 
souls  you  have  a  Christian  city — a  whole  com- 
munity inspired  with  the  feelings  and  acting 
under  the  motives  of  Christianity.  It  may  or 
may  not  embody  itself  in  laws  or  institutions  ;  it 
may  or  may  not  be  recognised  in  terms  in  the 
constitution  or  charter  ;  that  is  of  little  con- 
sequence. But  a  city  as  well  as  an  individual 
is  capable  of  a  Christian  experience  and  character 
It  is  more  than   an  aggregate  oi   the  experience 


136  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [vii 

of  the  souls  within  it,  as  a  chemical  compound 
has  qualities  which  did  not  appear  in  either  of  its 
constituents  ;  it  is  a  real  new  being  with  qualities 
and  powers  of  its  own. 

I  should  like  to  speak  this  morning  of  the 
Christian  city,  the  city  filled  with  the  joy  and 
legenerated  by  the  power  of  Christ.  The  subject 
falls  in  with  the  purpose  to  which  this  morning  is 
devoted  :  the  hospital  collection,  the  contribu- 
tion of  this  whole  Christian  city  to  the  sick  and 
needy,  a  municipal  act  of  Christian  charity.  That 
purpose  implies  a  Christian  city.  No  heathen 
city  ever  did  such  an  act.  It  is  the  utterance  in 
a  broad  and  simple  way  of  that  true  Christianity 
which,  in  spite  of  all  the  heathenism  that  is  still 
among  us,  is  yet  the  power  of  our  corporate  life, 
and  runs  in  the  veins  of  our  community. 

Christianity  is  primarily  a  personal  force,  and 
only  secondarily  does  it  deal  with  bodies  of  men, 
whether  with  churches  or  with  states.  That  is  a 
critically  important  truth.  The  souls  of  men 
must  be  converted  ;  and  out  of  those  converted 
souls  the  Christian  Church  or  the  Christian  State 
must  grow.  It  is  fatal  to  Christianity  to  try  to 
reverse  that  truth.  To  begin  by  making  the 
structure  of  a  Church  or  a  State,  and  expect  so  to 
create  personal  character,  is  as  if  you  began  to 
build   a  forest  from   the  top,  making  a  wilderness 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  137 

of  leaves  and  branches,  and  so  expecting  to  strike 
do\^-nward  into  trunks  and  roots.  This  is  the 
error  of  all  merely  ecclesiastical  and  political 
Christianity.  But  none  the  less  is  it  true  that 
when  the  right  beginning  has  been  rightly  made, 
when  souls  have  believed  in  Christ,  and  then  a 
great  multitude  of  personal  believers,  who  have 
been  fused  together  by  the  fire  of  their  common 
faith,  present  before  the  world  the  unity  of  a 
Christian  Church  or  a  Christian  nation,  that  new 
unity  is  a  real  unit,  a  genuine  being  with  its  own 
character  and  power. 

I  am  not  sure  how  intelligible  this  is.  I  am 
not  sure  that  it  is  possible  to  state  it  so  that  it 
shall  be  clear  to  every  mind.  It  needs  some  fami- 
liarity with  the  idea,  some  power  of  abstraction, 
perhaps  something  of  a  poetic  power,  to  realise  the 
true  existence  of  a  Church  or  a  city  as  a  being 
with  its  own  capacities  and  responsibilities  ;  but 
when  it  is  once  apprehended  it  is  very  real — it  is 
no  figure  of  speech.  We  see  the  Church  possessed 
as  a  whole  of  qualities  which  she  must  gather,  of 
course,  from  her  parts,  but  which  we  can  find  in 
no  one  of  her  parts.  She  is  more  permanent,  more 
wis^,  more  trustworthy  than  the  wisest  and  most 
trustworthy  of  the  men  who  compose  her  member- 
ship. The  city  is  a  being  dearer  to  us  than  any 
of  the  citizens  who  compose  it.      Many  a  man  goes 


138  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [viL 

out  to  war  and  gives  his  life  gladly  for  his  country 
who  would  not  have  dreamed  of  giving  it  for  any 
countryman.  There  are  indeed  some  men  who 
seem  to  be  incapable  of  any  such  thought  vvho 
never  can  get  beyond  the  individual.  But  the 
extent  to  which  these  ideas  of  what  we  may  call 
the  corporate  personalities,  such  as  the  Church,  the 
State,  the  City,  have  prevailed,  and  the  depth  to 
which  they  have  influenced  the  feeling  and  action 
of  mankind  is  a  testimony  that  they  are  not  imagin- 
ary but  real.  The  Bible  is  full  of  them.  The  Old 
Testament  deals  with  bodies  of  men  supremely : 
Israel  is  more  than  any  Israelite ;  Jerusalem  is 
realer  and  dearer  than  any  Jew.  The  New  Tes- 
tament reverts  to  the  individual,  who,  as  we  said, 
must  always  be  primarily  conspicuous  in  Chris- 
tianity ;  but  it  too  advances  towards  its  larger 
personality,  and  leaves  the  strong  figure  of  the 
Christian  Church  and  the  brilliant  architecture  of 
the  New  Jerusalem  burning  upon  its  latest  pages. 
But  leaving  these  general  thoughts,  let  us  come 
to  our  subject.  What  is  a  Christian  city  ?  Is  such 
a  thing  possible  ?  Is  anything  more  to  be  expected 
than  that  here  and  there  throughout  a  cit)  men 
and  women  should  be  Christians,  believing  Chris- 
tian truths,  living  Christian  lives,  and  looking  for- 
ward to  ineffable  rewards  beyond  the  skies  ?  Can 
we  conceive  of  Christianity  so  pervading  the  life 


rn.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  139 

of  a  community  that  not  merely  the  souls  shall  be 
Christian,  but  the  city  shall  be  Christian,  distinctly 
different  in  its  corporate  life  and  action  from  a 
heathen  city  which  knows  nothing  about  Christ  ? 

Christianity,  then,  or  the  change  of  man's  life 
by  Christ,  has  three  different  aspects  in  which  it 
appears — three  ways  in  which  it  makes  its  power 
known.  It  appears  either  as  Truth,  as  Righteous- 
ness, or  as  Love.  Every  soul  which  is  really  re- 
deemed by  Christ  will  enter  into  new  beliefs, 
higher  v/ays  of  action,  and  deeper  affections  towards 
fellow -men.  Belief,  behaviour,  and  benevolence, 
these  are  the  fields  in  which  Christ  works.  By  a 
change  in  these  He  changes  the  whole  man.  In 
every  Christian  Christianity  will  show  its  triple 
power.  Each  man  made  Christ's  man  will  believe 
more  truth  and  do  more  righteousness  and  over- 
run more  with  love  than  when  he  was  his  own 
selfish  servant.  There  will  be  difference  in  different 
Christians.  In  one  belief  will  be  most  prominent, 
in  another  integrity,  in  another  benevolence,  as  the 
fruit  of  his  conversion  ;  but  in  all  three  will  still 
be  present  a  truer  faith,  a  purer  righteousness,  and 
31  more  bounteous  charity. 

Now  take  these  one  by  one,  and  ask  if  a  city 
is  not  capable  of  them  as  well  as  an  individual. 
Again  I  say,  as  I  reminded  you  before,  that  they 
must  exist  primarily  in  individuals  ;  all  .spiritual 


HO  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [vii. 

character  must  reside  ultimately  in  single  souls  ; 
but  still  I  think  that  it  is  manifestly  true  that  an 
aggregate  of  individuals  may  possess  in  its  own 
peculiar  way  the  spiritual  character  which  the  indi- 
vidual possesses,  and  a  city,  like  a  man,  have  and 
exhibit  Christian  faith  and  Christian  righteousness 
and  Christian  love. 

I.  Look  first  at  Faith,  Perhaps  this  seems  the 
hardest  to  establish.  There  was  a  time  perhaps, 
we  say,  when  cities  had  their  beliefs.  There  was 
a  time  when  no  man  could  live  comfortably  in 
Rome  without  believing  like  the  Pope,  or  in  Geneva 
without  believing  like  Calvin,  or  in  England  or 
New  England  without  believing  like  the  king  or 
like  the  magistrates.  Then  it  might  seem  perhaps 
as  if  each  city  had  its  faith  ;  then  every  proclama- 
tion was  based  upon  a  creed.  But  see  hojv  that 
is  altered  now.  A  thousand  different  beliefs  fight 
freely  in  our  streets,  and  it  is  almost  true  that  no 
man  is  the  less  a  citizen  for  anything  that  he  be- 
lieves or  disbelieves.  When  these  old  times  come 
back  thj»n  you  may  have  a  believing  city,  a  city 
with  a  creed ;  but  not  till  then  ;  and  these  old  times 
are  never  coming  back.  But  this  is  surely  some- 
what shallow.  This  implies  that  the  only  exhibition 
of  a  faith  must  be  in  formal  statement.  It  ignores 
for  the  city  what  we  more  and  more  accept  for  the 
individual,  that  the  best  sign  that  a  man  believes 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  I4I 

anything  is  not  his  repetition  of  its  formulas,  but 
his  impregnation  with  its  spirit.  It  may  have 
grown  impossible,  at  least  for  the  present,  that 
cities  should  write  confessions  of  faith  in  their 
charters,  or  even  make  the  simplest  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  most  fundamental  truths  in  the  head- 
ings of  their  statutes  or  in  the  inscriptions  on  their 
coins  ;  but  if  it  is  possible — nay,  if  it  is  necessary 
— that  the  prevalence  through  all  a  city's  life  of  a 
belief  in  God  and  Christ  and  the  Holy  Spirit  should 
testify  of  itself  by  the  creation  of  certain  spiritual 
qualities  in  that  city,  recognisable  in  all  its  ways  of 
living  and  government,  then  have  we  not  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  believing  city  even  without  a  written 
creed  or  a  formal  proclamation.  Just  look  at  this 
city  where  you  live.  This  is  a  Christian  city — 
a  believing  city.  And  why  ?  how  do  we  know  it  ? 
It  is  not  because  an  occasional  document  is  solem- 
nised with  the  name  of  God.  It  is  not  because  a 
few  verses  of  the  Bible  are  read  each  morning  in 
your  public  schools.  It  is  because  that  spirit  which 
has  never  been  in  the  world  save  as  the  fruit  of 
Christian  faith  prevails  in  and  pervades  your  govern- 
ment and  social  life,  the  spirit  of  responsibility,  of 
trust  in  man,  and  of  hopefulness.  These  are  the 
spiritual  results  of  Christian  believing  :  they  are  not 
found  in  heathenism.  When  Christianity  enters  into 
heathenism  the  new  faith  of  a  converted  country 


142  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [viL 

is  testified  to  by  a  pervading  sense  of  responsibility, 
a  more  confident  and  cordial  trust  in  man,  and  an 
expectant  hopeful  enterprise,  which  together  make 
up  that  spirit  of  vigilant  and  serious  liberty  which 
belongs  to  the  best  civilisation  and  under  ^vhich 
you  live.  This  is  the  Christian  faith  of  your  com- 
munity, showing  in  all  your  public  actions.  It  has 
not  come  by  accident.  It  has  entered  into  you 
through  the  long  belief  of  your  fathers  which  you 
yourselves  still  keep  in  spite  of  all  your  scepticisms 
and  disputes,  the  belief  in  a  humanity,  created  by 
God,  redeemed  by  Jesus  Christ,  inspired  and  pointed 
on  to  indefinite  futures  by  a  Holy  Spirit. 

If  we  doubt  this,  if  we  doubt  whether  a  city 
can  have  and  show  a  Christian  faith,  we  have  only 
to  ask  ourselves  what  would  be  the  consequence 
if  a  heathen  belief  were  prevalent  everywhere 
among  us.  We  have  some  men  who  disbelieve 
intensely  and  bitterly  in  every  Christian  doctrine. 
They  disbelieve  in  God,  in  immortality,  in  anything 
like  spiritual  influence.  They  believe  in  no  re- 
demption of  humanity  opening  the  prospects  of 
eternal  life.  To  them  man  is  an  animal,  God  is  a 
fiction,  immortality  is  a  dream.  The  spirit  of  these 
men  we  know  :  it  is  hopeless,  cynical,  despairing. 
If  they  are  naturally  sensual,  they  plunge  into  de- 
bauchery ;  if  they  are  naturally  refined  and  fastidi- 
ous, they  stand  aside  and  sneer  at  or  superciliously 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  143 


pity  the  eager  work  and  exuberant  feeling  of  other 
men.  Such  men  we  know.  Now  fancy  such  men's 
faith  made  common  ;  fancy  their  disbehef  spread 
like  a  pestilence  through  all  the  blood  of  your  city. 
What  would  be  the  result  ?  Would  it  be  merely 
that  souls  would  be  blighted  and  cursed  ?  Would 
not  the  city  grow  weak  ?  Would  not  public  con- 
fidence be  smitten  to  the  ground  and  enterprise  be 
paralysed  ?  Would  any  generous  work  be  done  ? 
Could  either  popular  government  or  an  extended 
system  of  business  credit  still  survive,  since  both 
are  based  on  that  trust  of  man  in  man  which  is  at 
the  bottom  a  Christian  sentiment  ?  Would  you  not 
have  killed  enterprise  when  you  had  taken  hope- 
fulness away,  and  given  the  deathblow  to  public 
purity  when  you  had  destroyed  responsibility  ? 

No,  the  city  has  its  Christian  faith.  It  believes 
in  and  is  influenced  by  its  belief  in  the  great 
Christian  truths.  Its  belief  is  far  from  perfect : 
it  is  all  stained  and  broken  with  scepticism.  That 
disbelief  to  which  many  of  our  educated  men 
have  brought  themselves  creeps  down  in  ignorant 
and  half-unconscious  ways,  and  saps  the  strength 
out  of  the  belief  of  the  uneducated  masses.  But 
still  the  Christian  faith  is  the  true  faith  of  our 
cities.  It  is  vastly  more  strong  than  many  of  you 
who  spend  your  life  in  a  little  circle  of  people 
wi'Lh  the  affectation  of  doubts  upon  them  are  ready 


144  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [vii. 

to  believe.  Every  now  and  then  comes  a  revival 
Such  scenes  as  we  have  witnessed  in  England  and 
America  are  surely  the  most  explicable,  the  most 
intelligible  sights  that  it  is  possible  to  imagine. 
•'  What  does  it  mean  ?"  we  say  ;  "  when  all  seemed 
quiet,  and  men  seemed  settling  placidly  down  into 
unbelief  and  indifference,  all  of  a  sudden  this  great 
outbreak  ?  People  crowding  by  tens  of  thousands 
to  hear  some  homely  preacher,  the  city  shaken 
with  the  storm  of  hymns,  thousands  confessing 
their  sins  and  crying  out  for  pardon  ?"  Is  it  not 
clear  enough  what  it  means  ?  Here  many  of  the 
men  to  whom  the  people  most  looked  up  have 
been  sending  down  to  the  uplooking  people  the 
barren  gospel  of  their  scepticism.  They  have 
taught  them  that  there  is  no  God  whom  they  can 
know  ;  they  have  bidden  them  not  dream  of 
immortality.  These  teachings  have  sunk  into  the 
people's  heart ;  they  have  gone  down  there  heavy 
and  cold.  But  by  and  by  they  have  pressed  too 
terribly  upon  the  spiritual  consciousness  ;  the 
sense  of  God,  the  certainty  of  immortality,  has 
risen  in  rebellion ;  the  great  reaction  comes ,' 
the  wronged  affections  reassert  themselves. 

**  A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part, 
And  like  a  man  in  wrath  the  heart 
Stood  up  anc  answer 'd  '  I  have  felt"* 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  145 

One  must  rejoice  in  such  a  healthy  outburst.  To 
complain  of  its  extravagances  or  faults  of  taste  is 
as  if  you  complained  of  the  tempest  which  cleared 
your  city  of  the  cholera  because  it  shook  your  win- 
dows and  stripped  the  leaves  off  your  trees. 

It  is  then  possible  for  a  city  to  have  a  Christian 
faith.  The  methods  by  which  it  may  be  perpetu- 
ated and  kept  pure  are  open  to  endless  discussion. 
No  doubt  the  city  in  which  a  Christian  faith  is 
liveliest  stands  the  most  in  danger  of  ecclesiasti- 
cism  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  dogmatic  quarrelsome- 
ness on  the  other  ;  but  about  this  one  fact  we  are 
most  clear,  that  a  city  may  believe,  and  as  a  city 
may  be  blessed  by  its  belief.  It  seems  to  open 
an  appeal  to  any  generous  and  public -spirited 
young  man,  to  which  he  surely  ought  to  listen. 
Not  only  for  your  own  soul  and  its  interests  you 
ought  to  seek  the  truth,  and  not  be  satisfied  till 
you  believe  something  with  a  clear  and  certain 
faith.  For  the  community  in  which  you  live,  because 
these  streams  of  public  and  social  life  which  run 
so  shallow  need  to  be  deepened  with  eternal  inter- 
ests, because  your  faith  in  God  will  help  to  make 
God  a  true  inspiration  to  the  city's  life  ;  therefore, 
in  addition  to  all  the  motives  that  belong  to  you 
alone,  therefore  you  ought  not  to  be  satisfied 
without  believing.  Seek  for  the  truth  and  find  it. 
Not  for  yourself  alone,  but  for  the  men  about  you 

L 


146  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [viL 

for  the  city  that  you  love.  Remember  the  simple 
old  parable  in  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes  :  "  There 
was  a  little  city,  and  few  men  within  it ;  and  there 
came  a  great  king  against  it,  and  besieged  it,  and 
built  great  bulwarks  against  it :  now  there  was 
found  in  it  a  poor  wise  man,  and  he  by  his  wisdom 
delivered  the  city.  Then  said  I,  Wisdom  is  better 
than  strength."  And  wisdom  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment means  what  faith  means  in  the  New. 

2.  The  second  aspect  under  which  Christianity 
presents  itself  is  Righteousness.  A  man  who  is  a 
Christian  holds  certain  truth,  and  then  he  does 
certain  goodness  ;  there  is  a  new  moral  character 
in  his  activities.  We  pass  on  to  the  question  of 
this  righteousness.  Is  it  too  something  that  can 
belong  to  this  gathering  of  men  which  we  call  a 
city,  or  must  it  be  confined  wholly  to  individuals? 
In  this  aspect  can  there  be  such  a  thing  as  a 
Christian  city  ?  The  answer  is  not  difficult.  Cer- 
tainly every  city  has  a  moral  character  distinguish- 
able from,  however  it  may  be  made  up  of,  the 
individual  character  of  its  inhabitants.  This  is 
seen  in  two  ways.  First,  in  the  official  acts  which 
it  must  do,  the  acts  of  justice  or  injustice,  of  deceit 
or  candour  by  which  it  appears  as  a  person  acting 
in  its  official  unity  among  its  sister  cities.  Bu: 
even  more  its  moral  character  appears  in  its  capacity 
of  influence,  in  the  moral  atmosphere  which  per- 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  147 

vades  it,  and  which  exercises  pov^r  on  all  who 
come  within  it.  You  send  a  child  to  live  in  some 
village  of  the  South  Sea  Islands,  some  heathen 
brutal  community  where  vice  is  in  the  very  atmo- 
sphere, and  he  is  certainly  contaminated.  What 
is  it  that  contaminates  him  ?  Not  this  man's  or 
that  man's  example,  but  the  whole  character  of 
the  city  where  he  lives.  The  brutality  is  every- 
where, in  all  its  laws,  its  customs,  its  standards, 
its  traditions.  It  is  not  merely  in  this  or  that 
cannibal  group  who  hold  their  frightful  revel  in 
its  streets  ;  the  streets  themselves  are  steeped  in 
it ;  the  very  houses  reek  with  viciousness.  You 
send  him  back  to  live  in  old  Pompeii,  where  the 
abominations  which  modern  times  have  uncovered 
and  made  the  subject  of  cool  archaeological  study 
were  live  things,  the  true  expression  of  the  heathen 
city's  spirit,  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  her 
inward  and  spiritual  grace.  As  he  enters  in  you 
see  his  soul  wither  and  grow  spotted  with  corrup- 
tion. It  is  a  bad  city,  and  its  badness  taints  him. 
We  know  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  it  is  a 
bad  city  ;  it  is  not  the  badness  of  one  man  or 
another  of  which  we  are  thinking  ;  the  city  is  a 
real  true  being  in  our  thought — lustful  and  scorn- 
ful and  godless.  Then  bring  your  boy  and  put 
him  here  in  Christian  London.  It  is  not  only 
this  or  that  Christian  whom  he  meets.      It  is  a 


148  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [vii. 

Christian  goodness  everywhere  :  in  the  just  dealing 
of  the  streets,  in  the  serene  peace  of  the  homes, 
in  the  accepted  responsibilities  and  obligations  of 
friends  and  neighbours,  in  the  universal  liberty,  in 
the  absence  of  cruelty,  in  the  purity  and  decency, 
in  the  solemn  laws  and  the  courteous  ceremonies, — 
everywhere  there  is  the  testimony  of  a  city  where- 
in dwelleth  righteousness.  So  true  is  the  character 
in  the  city  itself  that  you  might  clear  the  streets 
of  London  of  all  their  present  population  and  pour 
into  their  places  the  inhabitants  of  the  South  Sea 
Island  town  or  of  old  dissolute  Pompeii,  and  though 
of  course  before  long  the  new  population  would  be 
too  strong  for  the  old  city  and  give  it  their  charac- 
ter, yet  for  a  time  the  character  of  even  the  inani- 
mate city,  of  the  stone  and  brick,  would  assert  its 
strength,  and  the  wild  savages  and  classic  sen- 
sualists would  be  unconsciously  refined  or  sobered 
as  they  went  among  the  houses  where  years  of 
Christian  purity  and  uprightness  had  left  their 
influence.  What  is  it  that  has  made  the  differ- 
ence ?  It  must  be  Christianity  ;  it  can  be  nothing 
else.  It  is  Christ  in  the  city  —  the  Christ  who 
has  been  here  so  many  years.  And  when  we 
think  how  imperfectly  Christ  has  been  welcomed 
and  adopted  here — how  only  to  the  outside  of  our 
life  He  has  penetrated,  then  there  opens  before  ua 
a  glorious  vision  of  what  the  city  might  be  in  which 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  149 

He  should  be  totally  received,  where  He  should 
be  wholly  King. 

We  dwell  on  the  iniquity  of  city  life  in 
modern  times.  Indeed  there  is  enough  of  it. 
But  it  is  not  the  riotous  and  boastful  wickedness 
of  heathen  times.  Men  have  at  least  seen  clearly 
enough  the  Christian  standard,  the  Christ,  to  be 
ashamed  of  what  they  are  not  willing  to  renounce, 
and  hide  in  secret  chambers  the  villainies  which 
used  to  flaunt  upon  the  public  walls.  It  is  one 
stage  in  every  conversion  of  the  converted  city  as 
of  the  converted  man.  The  next  stage  is  to  cast 
away  the  wickedness  of  which  one  has  become 
ashamed.  Of  cities  in  the  first  stage  there  are 
instances  everywhere  through  Christendom.  Of 
the  second  stage — of  the  city  totally  possessed  by 
Christ  and  so  casting  all  wickedness  away,  there 
is  as  yet  no  specimen  upon  the  earth,  only  the 
glowing  picture  of  the  apocalyptic  city,  the  New 
Jerusalem,  of  which  Christ  is  the  Sun  and  Light, 
and  into  which  there  can  enter  nothing  that  de- 
fileth,  neither  whatsoever  worketh  abomination 
nor  maketh  a  lie  ;  a  city  so  full  to  the  very  gates 
of  righteousness  that  it  casts  out  sin  as  light  casts 
out  darkness.  That  sounds  very  visionary  and  far 
tiway  ;  but  consider  that  to  bring  about  that  city 
so  different  from  your  London  you  need  only 
vastly  more  of  the  same  power   that   has   made 


ISO 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [vit 


your  London  so  different  from  Pompeii.  The 
Christian  city  is  not  all  a  dream.  Already  we 
have  a  city  which  has  enough  of  Christ  in  it  feeMy 
to  turn  away  from  its  gates  some  vices  which  once 
came  freely  in  to  the  old  cities.  Very  far  off,  but 
still  in  the  same  direction,  we  can  see  the  city  sc 
completely  filled  with  Christ  that  no  sin  can  come 
in,  nothing  that  defileth,  neither  whatsoever  work- 
eth  abomination  nor  maketh  a  lie. 

There  is,  then,  such  a  thing  as  a  city  Christian 
in  point  of  righteousness.  That  old  Jewish  con- 
ception of  a  holy  city  is  not  all  a  dream.  Purity 
and  truth  may  belong  to  a  city  as  well  as  to  a  man. 
Again  we  come  to  a  lofty  ground  of  appeal.  If 
you  are  pure  and  true,  you  who  are  privileged  to 
make  part  of  a  great  city,  remember — oh,  remem- 
ber ! — that  your  righteousness  is  not  for  yourself 
alone,  nor  for  the  few  whom  you  immediately 
touch  ;  it  is  for  your  city.  I  am  speaking  to  busi- 
ness men,  who,  if  they  will  be  really  Christians, 
may  help  to  put  a  more  Christian  character  into 
business  life.  I  am  speaking  to  women  of  society, 
who,  if  they  will  be  really  Christians,  may  make 
the  social  character  of  the  town  more  Christ-like, 
more  true,  serious,  lofty,  pure  and  intelligent — less 
sordid,  sensual,  and  ignorant.  I  am  speaking  to 
young  men,  on  whom  it  rests  to  develop  or  to 
destroy   for   their    city   the    character    that    theif 


Til.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  151 

fathers  gave  her.  If  you  fail,  you  Christian  men 
and  women,  what  chance  is  there  for  the  city  ? 
Not  for  yourselves  alone,  not  for  your  happiness 
alone,  here  or  hereafter,  but  for  the  city  of  which 
you  are  proud  ;  for  her  character,  which  will  be- 
come the  character  of  thousands  who  are  gathered 
into  her,  who  shall  be  born  in  her  hereafter,  is  there 
not  a  new  motive  to  be  earnest  and  pure  Christian 
men  and  women  in  the  love  of  God,  in  the  service 
of  Christ,  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ? 

3.  There  are  only  a  few  moments  left  me  in 
which  to  dwell  upon  the  third  development  of 
Christianity,  which  is  in  Charity.  Truth,  righteous- 
ness, and  love,  we  said  ;  faith,  hope,  and  charity, 
and  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity.  When  a  man 
becomes  a  Christian,  he  believes  right,  and  then 
he  does  right ;  and  then  he  tries  to  help  his  fellow- 
men.  That  is  the  old  highway  of  grace,  trodden 
by  the  multitudes  of  Christian  feet  for  ages.  And 
now  again  the  question  comes,  can  a  city  too  have 
Christian  charity  ?  Can  it  do  good  as  the  issue 
and  utterance  of  its  Christian  character  ? 

The  Christian  character  of  charity  is  very  apt 
to  elude  us.  If  a  Christian  man  gives  alms  to  a 
pour  friend,  it  is  laid  down  to  impulse  ;  and  if  a 
Christian  city  provides  for  its  ov/n  sick  and  needy 
and  homeless,  it  is  laid  down  to  economy.  In 
either  case  the   connection   of  the  charitable  act 


152  THk  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  (Vll. 


with  Christian  faith  is  lost.  But  this  is  very 
shallow.  You  say  it  is  all  impulse  when  you  give 
your  money  to  the  poor  ;  but  what  is  the  impulse  ? 
Is  there  no  Christianity  in  it  ?  Is  it  uniform  ?  Is 
your  impulse  the  same  as  the  savage's  ?  Has 
Christianity  done  nothing  to  keep  down  the  other 
impulse  to  harm,  and  to  strengthen  this  impulse 
to  help  your  brethren  ?  And  so  you  say  the  city's 
charity  is  all  economy  ;  her  hospitals  are  merely 
expedients  for  saving  so  much  available  human 
life.  But,  tell  me,  who  taught  her  this  economy  ? 
who  told  the  city  that  a  human  life  was  worth  the 
saving  ?  If  the  hospital  has  nothing  to  do  with 
Christianity,  but  is  a  mere  expedient  of  organisa- 
tion, how  is  it  that  the  most  highly  organised 
among  un-Christian  nations  have  had  but  the 
merest  rudiments  of  hospitals  ?  No  !  The  charity 
of  a  city  is  a  distinct  testimony  to  one  thing  which 
has  been  wrought  into  the  convictions  of  that  city. 
That  one  thing  is — the  value  of  a  man  ;  and  that 
conviction  has  come  out  of  the  Christian  faith. 
The  city  may  not  know  where  it  has  come  from, 
as  very  few  of  us  trace  our  deepest  convictions  to 
their  source  ;  but  they  have  none  the  less  sprung 
out  of  that  gospel  which  has  proclaimed  for  eighteen 
hundred  years  that  man  is  the  child  of  God  the 
Father,  that  he  has  been  redeemed  by  God  the 
Son,  and  that  his  body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy 


VII.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  153 

Ghost.  A  poor  neglected  creature  drops  in  the 
crowded  street ;  a  horse  strikes  him,  and  the  heavy 
waggon  crushes  him  as  he  Hes  ;  or  in  the  blazing 
summer  sun  he  is  smitten  to  the  ground  insensible. 
Instantly  the  city — not  this  pitying  man  or  that, 
but  the  pitying  city — stoops  and  gathers  him  up 
tenderly,  and  carries  him  to  the  hospital,  which  it 
has  built.  It  lays  him  on  the  bed  which  it  has 
spread  for  him  ;  it  summons  the  best  skill  to  set 
the  broken  bone  or  soothe  the  fever ;  it  watches 
by  his  sleep,  feeds  him  with  dainties,  finds  out  the 
potent  medicines,  cares  for  him  tenderly  until  he 
goes  out  strong,  or  until  the  weary  frame  finds  rest 
in  death.  Is  there  no  Christ  there  ?  Is  not  this 
a  Christian  charity?  Is  there  no  connection  be- 
tween that  strange  devotion,  so  impersonal  yet  so 
instinct  with  all  the  love  of  personality  and  the 
truth  which  is  in  the  city's  heart  and  soul,  that 
that  poor  man,  in  virtue  of  his  humanity,  is  the 
child  of  God,  the  fellow-heir  with  Christ  of  heaven. 
Once  there  was  a  city  which,  when  Christ  came  to 
it,  hated  and  scorned  Him  ;  it  seized  Him  brutally, 
dragged  Him  before  the  judgment-seat,  and  cry- 
ing "  Crucify  Him  !  crucify  Him  ! "  would  not  be 
satisfied  till  it  had  nailed  Him  on  the  cross  and 
seen  Him  die  in  agony.  To-day  here  is  a  city 
which,  if  Christ  came  to  it  in  person,  would  go 
out  and  welcome  Him,  would  call  Him  Lord  and 


iS4  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  [viL 

Master,  and  hang  upon  His  words  and  glory  in  the 
privilege  of  giving  Him  its  best.  In  that  first  city 
there  was  no  hospital  :  the  poor  sick  man  dropped 
and  perished  ;  the  children's  lives  vanished,  and 
no  man  even  counted  them  ;  the  wretched  leper 
was  cast  out  to  die  among  the  tombs.  In  this 
new  city  the  hospitals  stand  thick  for  every  kind 
of  misery  :  the  poor  fall  sick,  and  the  city's  great 
hand  is  under  them.  Is  there  no  connection  be- 
tween the  rejection  of  Christ  and  the  rejection  of 
His  poor ;  between  the  acceptance  of  Christ  and 
the  reception  of  His  suffering  brethren  ?  Has  not 
the  Christian  city  a  right  to  hear  the  Saviour's 
words  as  if  He  spoke  to  her  :  "  Inasmuch  as  thou 
hast  done  it  to  the  least  of  these  my  brethren, 
thou  hast  done  it  unto  Me"? 

I  know  the  perfunctory  and  heartless  treatment 
with  which  occasionally  the  methods  of  our  public 
charity  disown  the  spirit  to  which  it  owes  its  birth  ; 
but  that  is  rare,  and  still  the  fact  of  the  Christian 
city's  Christian  charity  remains.  Who  doubts 
that  if  the  city  were  tenfold  more  Christian  than 
she  is,  if  Christian  truth  and  Christian  righteous- 
ness were  tenfold  more  the  inspiration  and  law  of 
her  life,  the  hospitals  would  be  multiplied  and  en- 
riched till  it  should  be  an  impossibility  for  any  sick 
man  to  be  left  unhelped.  Deepen  the  city's  Chris- 
tianity  and   the   city's  charity   must  deepen  and 


vn.]  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY.  155 

widen  too.  If  we  could  imagine  any  poor,  sick, 
weak  man,  still  sick  and  weak,  in  the  midst  of  the 
overrunning  health  of  immortality,  finding  his  way 
into  the  heavenly  city  of  which  we  spoke,  and 
sinking  lame  and  exhausted  on  the  pavement  of 
the  New  Jerusalem,  only  think  how  the  faith  and 
righteousness  of  the  celestial  community  must  leap 
into  charity,  and  the  poor  sufferer  be  borne  to  the 
banks  of  the  river  of  the  water  of  life,  and  tended 
in  the  softest  chambers  of  the  holy  city,  where 
God  Himself  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes,  and  where  there  shall  be  no  more  pain. 

Truth,  righteousness,  and  charity — I  beg  you, 
fellow-Christians,  who  are  also  citizens  of  London, 
to  think  of  your  goodly  city  as  a  being  capable  of 
all  of  these.  Never  fall  into  any  low  way  of 
counting  her  a  mere  mass  of  houses  or  a  mere 
machine  of  trade.  Honour  her  and  love  her,  and 
try  to  make  her  more  and  more  worthy  of  your 
honour  and  your  love  by  faithful,  upright,  chari- 
table lives,  which  shall  contribute  to  her  truth  and 
righteousness  and  love. 

You  know  why  I  have  spoken  thus  to-day. 
To-day  your  Christianity  and  charity  clasp  hands, 
and  the  mother  knows  and  claims  her  child.  Not 
by  a  mere  appeal  to  feeling,  but  by  asserting  the 
reality  and  responsibility  of  a  Christian  city,  I  have 
tried  to  make  you  ready  for  the  solemn  and  beauti- 


156  THE  CHRISTIAN  CITY,  [viL 

ful  act  of  Hospital  Sunday.  The  sick  and  suffer- 
ing are  all  around  us  ;  their  cries  are  in  our  ears. 
They  are  the  children  of  our  Father,  the  brethren 
of  our  brethren.  To-day  your  Christian  city  owns 
their  claim.  We  forget  our  differences,  and  try  to 
do  the  duty  in  which  we  are  all  one.  If  you  will 
do  it  as  you  can,  there  shall  be  great  joy  in  this 
city  ;  not  only  because  many  a  poor  sufferer  will 
be  relieved,  but  because  you  shall  have  borne  wit- 
ness that  Christ  is  verily  among  you — that  this  is 
indeed  a  city  of  tl'e  living  God. 


VIIl 

THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH 


'  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  her,  O  woman,  great  is  thy 
faith  :  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt" — Matt.  xv.  28. 


These  are  evidently  the  words  of  one  who  is 
yielding,  one  who,  after  some  reluctance,  is  giving 
way.  If  we  knew  nothing  about  their  connection, 
if  we  merely  heard  them  by  themselves,  we  should 
seem  to  see  a  closed  hand  opening  and  letting  go 
something  which  it  had  been  holding  fast.  And 
such  reluctance,  as  we  well  know,  is  of  many 
kinds.  One  man  withholds  that  which  he  might 
bestow  because  he  wants  to  make  his  gift  seem 
more  valuable ;  another  because  he  wants  to  bind 
the  receiver  more  closely  to  himself;  another  be- 
cause he  thinks  that  what  he  has  to  give  has  not 
yet  been  sufficiently  deserved  or  earned  ;  another 
because  he  thinks  it  will  not  be  used  in  the  best 
way.     When  these  considerations  have  been  over- 

*  Preached  at  St.  Michael's  Church,  Chester  Square,  London, 
Sunday  afternoon,  loth  June  1883. 


158  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [viii. 

come,  then  the  closed  hand  opens,  and  the  gift  is 
given. 

You  remember  the  story  from  which  the  words 
are  taken.  Jesus  has  travelled  outside  of  the 
regions  of  the  Jews,  and  there  has  come  to  him  a 
Canaanitish  woman  askiiig  Him  to  cure  her  poor 
afflicted  daughter.  He  has  hesitated  and  remon- 
strated, but  at  last  she  overcomes  Him  uith  her 
urgency,  and  He  yields  to  her,  saying,  "  O  woman, 
great  is  thy  faith  :  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou 
wilt."  It  would  be  possible  to  give  reasons,  which 
no  doubt  would  be  true  ones,  for  Christ's  reluct- 
ance. Each  one  of  those  which  I  suggested  might 
apply  ;  but  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  truest  and 
simplest  way  to  look  at  this  beautiful  story,  which 
I  wish  to  study  with  you  this  afternoon,  is  to  con- 
sider it  as  a  record  of  the  spiritual  necessities  of 
Jesus.  The  idea  which  seems  to  me  to  be  in  it 
is  this,  that  Jesus  gave  the  woman  what  she 
wanted  just  as  soon  as  it  was  possible  for  Him  to 
give  it  ;  and  that,  just  as  soon  as  it  was  possible 
for  Him  to  give  it,  in  some  true  sense  He  had  to 
give  it,  it  was  impossible  for  Him  to  refuse  it  any 
longer.  He  was  not  holding  it,  as  it  were,  behind 
His  back,  watching  her  face  to  see  when  was  the 
best  moment  to  give  it  to  her.  He  was  telling 
her  of  a  genuine  impossibility  when  He  said,  "  I 
am  not  sent  but  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the  hous^ 


vin.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  159 

of  Israel."  He  could  not  give  her  what  she  wanted 
then ;  but  when  by  her  belief  in  Him  she  had 
crossed  the  line  and  become  spiritually  one  of  His 
people,  then  the  impossibility  was  removed,  and 
we  may  even  say,  I  think,  that  He  could  not  help 
helping  her. 

All  through  the  record  of  mercies  and  the 
miracles  of  Jesus  there  runs  a  certain  subtle  tone 
which  puzzles  us.  He  who  is  so  powerful  and  mer- 
ciful gives  us  still  a  strange  impression  of  holding 
His  mercy  and  power  under  some  strange  conditions 
which  limit  and  restrict  their  use.  He  who  is  so 
free  is  evidently  bound  by  chains  too  fine  for  us  to 
see.  I  need  not  remind  you  that  there  were  some 
villages  where  He  could  do  no  mighty  works  be- 
cause there  He  found  no  faith.  "Whatsoever  ye 
ask  believing  ye  shall  receive,"  He  says,  as  if  there 
were  some  other  condition  besides  His  own  great 
love  which  must  decide  whether  any  special  prayer 
should  find  its  answer.  When  the  needy  men  and 
women  come  to  Him  we  find  ourselves  watchincr 
to  see  which  of  them  He  will  relieve,  and  we  are 
sure  as  we  watch  that  it  is  not  any  mere  whim  of 
His  which  will  decide  ;  there  is  some  law  which 
binds  Him  with  necessity.  Surely  everybody  who 
has  read  the  Gospel  at  all  sympathetically  has  felt 
this.  I  seem  to  hear,  as  I  read,  the  sound  of  a  great 
sea  of  might  and  mercy  shut  in  behind  necessities 


A 


i6o  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [vill. 

which  it  cannot  disobey  ;  I  seem  to  hear  it  clamour- 
ing to  escape  and  give  itself  away  along  long 
stretches  of  the  wall  which  shuts  it  in  ;  and  then  I 
seem  to  see  it  bursting  forth  rejoicingly  where  some 
great  gate  is  flung  wide  open  and  it  may  go  forth 
unhindered  to  its  work  of  blessing.  So  seems  to 
me  the  story  of  the  power  and  love  of  Jesus  held 
fast  under  the  conditions  of  the  faith  of  men. 

Christ  is  too  truly  man  like  us,  and  we  are  too 
truly  man  like  Christ,  for  us  not  to  have  seen  in 
our  actions  glimpses  of  the  same  necessity  under 
which  He  acted.  We  too  act  for  our  fellow-men 
under  the  perpetual  conditions  of  their  faith.  Who 
of  us  that  has  ever  tried  to  help  his  brethren  has 
not  come  to  places  where  he  can  use  both  of  those 
words  of  Jesus,  where  he  can  say  sometimes,  "  I  can 
do  no  work  here  because  of  this  unbelief,"  and 
sometimes,  "  Great  is  thy  faith  :  be  it  unto  thee 
even  as  thou  wilt."  Some  regions  there  are  in 
which  it  seems  as  if  every  power  of  use  and  help- 
fulness that  we  ever  possessed  were  gone,  or  at  least 
for  the  time  were  walled  up  and  buried  ;  other 
regions  there  are  where,  almost  without  our  will, 
the  best  that  is  in  us  leaps  to  the  gate  and  hurries 
out  to  help  some  need  which  has  summoned  it 
with  a  peculiar  desire  and  capacity  of  being  helped. 

The  subject  of  the  verse,  then,  and  that  of  which 
I  wish  to  speak  this  afternoon  is  "  The  Power  of   \ 


VIII.]  THE  GREATNESS   OF  FAITH.  i6j 

Faith  over  Jesus."  We  are  always  talking  as  if 
the  highest  natures  and  beings  were  the  least  sub- 
ject to  law.  A  great  many  good  people  seem  to 
talk  as  if  the  world  would  be  more  splendid,  clothed 
with  a  completer  dignity,  if  it  were  not  all  bound 
by  necessities  which  it  cannot  escape,  if  every  stai 
moved  in  the  sky  and  every  flower  opened  in  the 
garden,  not  because  it  must,  but  because,  by  some 
extemporaneous  whim,  it  chose  to.  And  so  men 
look  to  those  whom  they  call  their  superiors, 
and  think  that  their  superiority  and  privilege 
consists  in  their  escape  from  law.  The  labourer 
plods  to  his  work  early  in  the  morning  dusk  and 
sees  the  rich  man's  curtains  still  undrawn,  and 
says, "  Oh,  if  I  were  only  rich  like  him,  and  could  do 
as  I  pleased."  The  boy  takes  his  task  at  school, 
and  dreams  as  he  does  it  of  the  days  when  school 
shall  be  over  and  nobody  shall  any  longer  set  him 
tasks.  As  we  go  on  we  find  we  are  all  wrong. 
The  higher  the  nature  the  more  imperative  has  %^ 

grown  the  law.  The  rich  man  lying  in  his  bed 
envies  the  labourer's  easy  whistle  under  his  window. 
The  merchant  calls  the  schoolboy  free.  He  who 
must  do  only  what  a  few  of  his  fellow-men,  who 
are  his  special  masters,  can  order  him  in  formal 
commandment,  and  can  enforce  by  stated  penalties, 
has  no  conception  of  the  perfect  servantship  of  that 
life  which  has  all  men   for  its  masters,  and  mu.st 


^ 


i62  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH,  [niL 

obey  any  one  of  them,  no  matter  who  he  be,  who 
speaks  to  it  with  that  entire  openness  and  power 
to  be  helped  which  we  call  faith. 

I  beg  you  to  observe  how  definite  and  clear  an 
idea  there  is  here  of  the  way  in  which  Christ  gives 
His  mercies  to  mankind.  Evidently  there  is  some 
inequality  in  the  distribution  of  them.  Any  man 
can  see  that.  Men  have  always  seen  it  Christ 
makes  some  men  good  and  brave  and  holy ;  other 
men  He  seems  to  leave  untouched.  Some  men 
He  saves  ;  other  men  He  seems  to  leave  unsaved. 
Men  have  always  seen  that,  and  they  have  always 
tried  to  explain  it.  They  have  tried  the  explana- 
tion of  election,  and  they  have  tried  the  explana- 
tion of  desert.  They  have  said,  "  Christ  chooses 
to  save  these  and  chooses  to  leave  those  unsaved." 
That  explanation  has  not  satisfied  men  ;  it  has 
seemed  too  much  to  leave  out  man.  Then  they 
have  said,  "  These  men  have  deserved  to  be  saved, 
and  those  men  have  not  deserved  it."  That  ex- 
planation also  has  seemed  insufficient.  It  has 
seemed  too  much  to  leave  out  Christ,  or  to  bring 
Him  in  only  a  sort  of  bookkeeper  and  paymaster  of 
the  moral  world.  But  still  this  other  explanation 
remains.  Christ  saves  all  whom  He  can  save,  all  J.. 
who  are  savable.  Doing  all  that  He  can  first  to 
make  men  wiling  to  receive  Him,  He  then  at 
last   is  in   the  power  of  their  willingness.     This 


viii.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  163 

surely  is  an  intelligible  idea  of  Christ  and  of  the  way 
in  which  He  treats  mankind  ;  this  certainly  lets  us 
understand  both  of  those  words  of  His,  which  are 
but  specimens  of  many  other  words  that  He  said  : 
"  The  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save 
that  which  was  lost,"  and  "  To  as  many  as  received 
Him  gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 
It  will  be  good  for  us  first  to  see,  what  I  have 
already  hinted,  how  widely  prevalent  the  principle 
is  which  comes  to  its  consummati  n  in  the  giving 
of  Himself  by  Christ  to  men.  Everywhere  faith,  or 
the  capacity  of  receiving,  has  a  power  to  claim  and 
command  the  thing  which  it  needs.  Nature  would 
furnish  us  many  an  exhibition  of  the  principle. 
You  plant  a  healthy  seed  into  the  ground.  The 
seed's  health  consists  simply  in  this,  that  it  has  the 
power  of  true  relations  to  the  soil  you  plant  it  in. 
And  how  these  spring-days  bear  us  witness  that  the 
soil  acknowledges  this  power  :  no  sooner  does  it 
feel  the  seed  than  it  replies  ;  it  unlocks  all  its 
treasures  of  force  ;  the  little  hungry  black  kernel 
is  its  master.  "  O  seed,  great  is  thy  faith,"  the 
ground  seems  to  say  ;  "  be  it  unto  thee  even  as 
th  u  wilt ;"  and  so  the  miracle  of  growth  begins. 
Or  a  human  mind  comes  to  an  idea.  What  shall 
it  be  ?  Let  us  say  the  idea  of  cause  and  purpose 
running  through  and  filling  all  creatiDn.  Clothe 
that  idea  in  your  imagination  with  consciousness  ; 


l64  THE  GREA  TNESS  OF  FAITH.  [viii, 

let  it  know  what  truth  it  carries  in  its  heart ; 
think  of  it  as  pondering  to  whom  it  shall  deliver  up 
that  truth.  There  cannot  any  longer  be  a  doubt 
when  it  has  once  found  the  mind  that  really  sym- 
pathetically believes  in  it.  It  fills  that  mind  with 
inspiration  ;  it  sends  its  force  all  through  its  action. 
Other  minds  touch  it,  and  it  gives  them  nothing. 
The  man  who  in  the  most  entire  sympathy  believes 
in  the  idea  lives  by  it  ;  all  his  movements  become 
lofty,  calm,  fruitful  with  its  influence.  And  so  still 
more  about  a  man.  Why,  it  becomes  a  common- 
place of  all  social  life  which  is  in  the  least  thought- 
ful and  observant,  that  no  man  gets  anything  out 
of  a  fellow-man  unless  in  some  degree,  in  some 
way,  he  believes  in  him.  Here  is  a  man  whose 
life  is  full  of  business :  his  face,  his  hand,  his 
name  are  everywhere  ;  there  is  no  movement  in 
the  community  in  which  he  does  not  take  a  part  ; 
there  is  no  cause  in  which  his  aid  is  not  invoked. 
What  is  that  man  to  you,  a  fellow-citizen  of  his, 
before  whose  eyes  he  is  for  ever  standing  out  in 
some  new  manifestation  of  his  energy  ?  Does  not 
ev^erything  depend  upon  whether  you  personally 
believe  in  him  ?  Suppose  that  you  do  not  ;  sup- 
pose that  all  his  tireless  activity  has  only  succeeded 
in  impressing  you  with  the  conviction  that  he  is  a 
selfish,  superficial  busybody  ;  suppose  that,  seeing 
how  different  his  ways  of  working  are  from  yours, 


VIII.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  165 

or  finding  yourself  at  variance  with  him  about 
something  concerning  which  you  feel  perfectly  sure 
that  you  are  right,  you  have  come  to  believe  that 
he  is  insincere  ;  suppose  that  some  blunder  of  his 
has  seemed  to  you  to  show  such  essential  rotten- 
ness that  you  cannot  trust  anything  about  him  ? 
What  then  ?  That  man's  good,  whatever  good 
there  may  be  in  him,  is  shut  up  from  you  com- 
pletely. He  can  do  nothing  for  you  ;  you  can  get 
nothing  out  of  him.  Some  lessons,  some  sugges- 
tions from  his  life  you  may  collect,  but  they  will 
be  to  you  only  what  they  would  have  been  if  you 
had  read  them  in  a  book  or  a  newspaper.  The 
man  himself — not  what  he  knows  and  says,  but 
what  he  is — the  man  himself  is  as  closely  and 
tightly  locked  away  from  you  as  are  the  treasures 
in  the  bank's  vaults  from  the  poor  vagrant  who 
sleeps  at  night  on  the  bank  steps  or  paces  up  and 
down  its  sidewalk. 

This  is  the  reason  why  a  disbelieving  life  be 
comes  a  barren  life.  You  know  how  very  common 
it  has  grown  for  men  to  think  it  a  sign  of  wisdom 
and  profound  experience  to  distrust  their  fellow- 
men.  The  reason  why  one  dreads  to  see  a  temper 
such  as  that  increase  is  that  the  nature  which  dis- 
trusts gets  nothing  from  the  men  in  whom  it  dis- 
believes. One  of  the  reasons  why  youth  is  the 
growing  and  accumulating  period  of  life,  the  period 


l66  THE  GREA  TNESS  OF  FAITH.  [viii. 

in  which  harvests  of  truth  and  hope  and  charactef 
are  gathered  in,  is  that  youth  naturally  and  instinct- 
ively believes.  By  and  by  the  man  grows  up,  and 
then,  distrusting  his  fellow -men,  he  walks  over 
their  hidden  riches  as  the  ignorant  traveller  walks 
over  an  unopened  mine.  Oh,  my  dear  friends,  young 
men  and  old,  try  to  respect  and  trust  just  as  far  as 
you  can  the  men  with  whom  you  most  profoundly 
disagree,  for  so  only  can  you  get  from  them  the 
peculiar  riches  which  they  have  to  give  you.  A 
staunch  and  settled  Conserva' ive,  who  is  never 
going  to  be  anything  but  a  Conservative,  if  he 
respects  the  ability  and  honesty  of  some  stout 
Radical,  keeps  open  a  channel  through  which 
something  of  what  value  there  possibly  may  be  in 
the  Radical's  Radicalism  may  flow  into  him.  The 
Radical  who  honours  a  Conservative  gets  some- 
thing of  what  value  there  may  possibly  be  in  his 
Conservatism.  The  more  men  you  honour  the  more 
cisterns  you  have  to  draw  from.  Men  of  other 
parties,  other  Churches,  other  trades  than  your  own, 
must  acknowledge  the  demand  which  your  faith 
makes  on  them,  and  give  you  whatever  each  of 
them  may  have  worth  the  giving. 

And  if  we  stand  not  upon  the  side  of  the  receiver 
but  upon  the  side  of  the  giver,  the  same  truth  is 
full  of  force.  You  want  to  give  your  intelligence, 
"our  thought,  your  wisdom,  such  as  it  is,  to  the 


VIII.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  167 

little  circle  in  which  God  has  set  you  to  live.  It 
is  not  conceit  that  prompts  you  ;  it  is  a  real 
desire  to  be  useful.  How  necessary  it  is  that  at 
the  very  outset  you  should  know  our  truth — that 
it  is  only  to  faith  that  such  gifts  can  be  given. 
Men  and  women  are  standing  everywhere,  all  over 
the  world,  urging  their  advice  and  experience  upon 
other  people  who  do  not  believe  in  them.  These 
other  people  have  nothing  against  them  ;  they 
do  not  hate  them  or  despise  them  ;  but  they  have 
no  faith  in  them.  Faith  is  a  positive  thing,  not 
merely  negative.  Not  to  disbelieve  in  a  man  is 
something  very  different  from,  very  far  short  of, 
believing  in  him.  Such  men  trying  to  enlighten 
and  help  other  men  who  have  no  faith  in  them 
are  like  suns  without  atmospheres.  No  matter 
how  bright  they  shine,  the  world  which  they  want 
to  enlighten  gets  no  light  from  them.  You  must 
build  the  atmosphere  before  you  can  send  down 
the  light  You  must  win  men's  faith  before  you 
can  do  anything  to  make  them  wise  or  happy. 
Therefore  it  is  that  the  mere  amount  of  a  man's 
intellectual  power  or  the  mere  degree  of  truth  in 
a  man's  doctrine  is  never  a  complete  test  or  assur- 
ance of  the  power  he  will  have  over  other  men, 
A  crazy  chatterer  or  a  blatant  infidel  will  make 
the  whole  world  listen  and  fill  men  with  his  folly 
if  he  can  only  make  men   believe  in  him  ;  while 


1 68  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [vili. 

Wisdom  herself  may  cry  aloud  in  the  chief  place 
of  concourse  and  no  man  hear,  and  the  whole 
crowd  go  away  as  foolish  as  it  came.  If  you 
really  want  to  help  your  fellow-men,  you  must  not 
merely  have  in  you  what  would  do  them  good  if 
they  should  take  it  from  you,  but  you  must  be 
such  a  man  that  they  can  take  it  from  you.  The 
snow  must  melt  upon  the  mountain  and  come  down 
in  a  spring  torrent,  before  its  richness  can  make 
the  valley  rich.  And  yet  in  every  age  there  are 
cold,  hard,  unsympathetic  wise  men  standing  up 
aloof,  like  snow-banks  on  the  hill-tops,  conscious 
of  the  locked-up  fertility  in  them,  and  wondering 
that  their  wisdom  does  not  save  the  world. 

I  think  that  in  such  thoughts  as  these  there 
comes  out  more  clearly  than  any  deliberate  defini- 
tion can  embody  it  what  is  meant  by  faith.  The 
best  things  in  this  world  can  be  defined  only  by 
a  description  of  their  result.  No  man  can  tell  me 
what  the  sunlight  is  except  by  what  it  does. 
The  essence  of  life  is  utterly  inexplicable  ;  the 
action  of  life  all  men  can  see.  And  so  of  faith 
Faith  as  I  have  talked  of  it  to  you  to-day  is  such 
a  relation  of  one  being  to  another  higher  being  as 
opens  the  higher  being's  nature  to  the  lower,  and 
makes  a  ready  gift  of  the  higher  to  the  lower 
possible.  "  Ah,  then,"  says  the  dogmatist,  "  I  see 
that  I  was  right.      Faith  is  a  proper  understanding, 


VIII.]  THE  GREA  TNESS  OF  FAITH.  169 

a  true  idea,  a  correct  creed.  You  must  have  that 
before  the  being  higher  than  yourself  can  give  him- 
self to  you."  And  then  the  sentimentalist  cries, 
"  No,  I  was  right ;  faith  must  be  feeling.  Love 
and  trust  your  superior,  and  he  can  help  you." 
And  yet  another  man,  the  moralist,  says,  "  Was 
not  I  right  ?  Is  not  faith  simply  obedience  ?  Do 
your  master's  will,  and  he  will  put  his  nature  into 
you."  And  as  they  all  speak,  anybody  who  has 
really  got  hold  of  the  great  truth  sees  how  partial 
they  all  are,  sees  that  faith  is  something  greater 
than  they  each  describe  it,  sees  that  it  must 
include  and  must  outgo  them  all  :  for  I  may 
know  all  the  facts  about  a  man,  and  yet  his  nature 
stand  shut  tight  against  me  ;  and  I  may  love  and 
trust  a  man  so  foolishly  and  superficially  and 
sillily,  that  he  can  do  nothing  for  me  ;  and  I  may 
follow  a  man's  footsteps,  and  be  in  no  more  real 
communion  with  him  than  his  dog.  Sometimes 
all  these  unite,  and  something  else,  indefinable  but 
absolutely  recognisable,  is  added  to  them — some- 
thing which  comes  in  as  additional  to  everything 
that  can  be  defined  in  the  substance  of  a  friend- 
ship— and  then,  and  not  till  then,  the  gates  are 
opened  and  the  lower  nature  becomes  wise  with 
the  wisdom,  strong  with  the  strength,  of  the  higher, 
lives  by  its  life,  judges  with  its  judgment,  knows 
with    its    knowledge.      The  power  of  that  union, 


I7<y  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [vili. 

the  complete  and  open  resting  of  the  life  that 
depends  on  the  life  that  supplies,  that  is  faith. 

In  deep  distress  sometinnes,  sometimes  in  the 
most  perfect  and  entire  calmness,  sometimes  in 
the  full  current  of  most  busy  life,  sometimes,  as  if 
it  were  the  crown  and  sum  of  living,  on  the  death- 
bed, when  the  snapping  of  old  ties  is  like  the 
cracking  of  the  winter  ice  at  the  approach  of 
spring-time, — at  any  time,  in  any  place,  wherever 
God  wills,  whenever  the  man's  soul  is  ready,  the 
gates  open  slowly  or  suddenly ;  the  soul  has 
faith  in  God  ;  and  God  is  given  to  the  soul.  The 
whole  of  life  until  that  comes  is  but  a  growth,  a 
struggle,  a  reaching-out  to  that.  Life  is  but  the 
mere  shell  of  life  until  it  comes.  Life  is  faith. 
To  believe  in  God  is  to  be  filled  with  Him,  to 
enter  into  life  eternal,  and  to  have  it  enter  into  us. 

But  I  must  come  back  from  what  I  hope  has 
not  seemed  a  wandering  from  the  spiritual  sub- 
stance of  my  text  to  its  words.  Here  was  this 
woman  whose  faith  had  such  a  power  over  Jesus 
that  He  could  not  resist  it.  I  hope  that  we  have 
got  some  glimpse  of  what  that  means.  The  secret 
of  it  all  to  me  is  this — Jesus  was  the  manifestation 
of  God.  God,  with  His  power  and  love,  was,  so  to 
speak,  humanly  manifest  in  Jesus.  That  human 
form,  walking  with  self- witnessing  evidence  of 
divinity   there   among   men,  was  not   merely  the 


vxil.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  171 

declaration  of  God's  love  and  power ;  it  was 
Gods  love  and  power  actually  here.  Now  when 
this  woman,  by  some  such  comprehensive  action 
IS  I  was  just  trying  to  describe,  believed  in  Him. 
she  was  really  claiming  that  in  that  human  mani- 
festation of  God  she  in  virtue  of  her  humanity 
had  a  true  part  and  might  press  a  true  claim.  It 
is  almost  like  this.  It  is  almost  as  if  a  reservoir 
of  water  were  established  in  a  thirsty  city  for  the 
city's  use,  and  some  citizen  of  that  city  came  and 
said,  "  I  have  a  right  to  some  of  it  ;  give  me  my 
share."  And  his  claim  was  allowed  by  the 
servant  in  whose  charge  the  reservoir  was  placed  ; 
allowed,  because  he  was  one  of  those  to  whom 
the  water  belonged.  So  this  woman  said  to  Christ, 
"  I  in  my  human  need  have  a  right  to  you,  who  are 
the  love  of  God  humanly  manifest."  And  Christ 
replied,  "  Indeed  you  have,  and  that  claim  of 
yours  is  itself  the  assurance  of  your  right.  No 
man  can  claim  me  so  and  not  have  me.  Such  a 
claim  opens  the  channels  between  your  life  and 
mine,  and  what  there  is  in  me  must  flow  into  you." 
Something  as  real,  as  essential,  as  natural,  as  in- 
evitable as  that  seems  to  me  to  be  in  His  words 
when  He  says,  "  Great  is  thy  faith  :  be  it  unto 
thee  as  thou  wilt."  When  He  said  to  His  disciples 
these  other  deep  words,  "As  the  branch  cannot 
bear  fruit  of  itself  except  it  abide  in  the  vine,  no 


172  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [viii. 

more  can  ye  except  ye  abide  in  Me,"  He  really 
was  teaching  the  same  truth.  There  is  a  natural 
eternal  relationship  and  openness  between  the 
life  of  man  and  the  life  of  God.  To  have  that 
openness  closed  is  unbelief ;  to  have  that  openness 
wide  open  is  faith  ;  and  faith  is  health  and  life. 

It  is  only  with  this  truth,  I  think,  that  we  can 
get  and  keep  any  true  hold  of  the  vast  and  be- 
wildering idea  of  God's  care  for  all  His  creatures, 
with  all  their  small  and  separate  lives.  How  hard 
it  is  for  us  to  keep  that  truth,  even  while  we  feel 
that  life  would  be  worth  very  little  to  us  if  we 
did  not  have  it.  And  what  makes  it  so  hard  for 
us  to  hold  appears  to  me  to  be  the  artificial  con- 
ception which  we  have  of  the  connection  between 
God  and  His  creatures.  We  talk  about  God's 
remembering  us,  as  if  it  were  a  special  effort,  a 
laying  hold  by  His  great  mind  of  something  out- 
side of  Himself,  which  He  determined  to  remem- 
ber. But  if  we  could  only  know  how  truly  we 
belong  to  God,  it  would  be  different.  God's 
remembrance  of  us  is  the  natural  claiming  of  our 
life  by  Him  as  true  part  of  his  own.  When  the 
spring  comes,  the  oak-tree  with  its  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  leaves  blossoms  all  over.  The  great 
heart  of  the  oak-tree  remembers  ever/  remotest 
tip  of  every  farthest  branch,  and  sends  to  each 
the  message  and  the  power  of  new  life.     And  yet 


VUl.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  173 


we  do  not  think  of  the  heart  of  the  oak-tree  as  if 
it  were  burdened  with  such  multitudinous  remem- 
brance, or  as  if  it  were  any  harder  work  for  it  to 
make  a  million  leaves  than  it  would  be  to  make 
one.  It  is  simply  the  thrill  of  the  common  life 
translated  into  these  million  forms.  The  great 
heart  beats,  and  wherever  the  channels  of  a  com- 
mon life  are  standing  open  the  rich  blood  flows, 
and  out  on  every  tip  the  green  leaf  springs. 
Somewhat  in  that  way  it  seems  to  me  that  we 
may  think  of  God's  remembrance  of  His  million 
children.  In  some  hut  to-day  some  poor  sick 
sufferer  is  wearing  the  hours  out  in  agony,  long- 
ing for  the  evening  as  all  last  night  he  longed  for 
the  morning  which  seemed  as  if  it  would  never 
come.  Or  in  some  obscure  shop  to-day  some 
insignificant  workman  is  doing  some  bit  of  faith- 
ful and  useful  but  unnoticed  work.  You  do  not 
hesitate  to  speak  to  each  of  them  and  say,  "  God 
remembers  you.  He  never  forgets  you  for  a 
moment,"  But  how  can  you  represent  to  your 
spiritual  imagination,  or,  what  is  harder  still,  to 
theirs,  the  fact  of  that  remembrance  ?  It  must  be 
by  the  realisation  of  an  open  channel  of  continu- 
ous and  common  life  between  God  and  that 
patient  sufferer,  that  toilsome  worker.  They  are 
far-off  leaves  on  the  great  tree  of  His  life  ;  far- 
off,  and  yet  as  near  to  the  beating  of  His  '•'eart  as 


174  "^^^  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [vili. 

any  leaf  on  all  the  tree.  He  remembers  them  as 
the  heart  remembers  the  finger-tips  to  which  it 
sends  the  blood.  He  gives  them  Himself  because 
they  are  His  in  such  profound  reality  that  they  are 
more  than  His,  they  are  really  He.  If  any  doubt 
about  Him,  issuing  from  them,  stops  up  the  chan- 
nel so  that  He  cannot  get  to  them.  He  waits 
behind  the  hindrance,  behind  the  doubt,  and  tries 
to  get  it  away,  and  feels  the  withering  of  the 
unbelieving,  unfed  leaf  as  if  a  true  part  of  Himself 
were  dying.  And  when  the  obstacle  gives  way, 
and  the  doubt  is  broken  and  the  path  is  once 
more  open,  it  is  almost  with  a  shout  which  we  can 
hear  that  the  life-blood  leaps  to  its  work  again  ; 
and  the  sufferer  wins  new  strength,  and  the 
worker  wins  new  courage,  by  what  it  calls  the 
renewed  remembrance  of  God,  but  what  is  really 
the  soul's  renewed  claim,  which  gives  God  once 
more  the  power  to  show  His  never-changed,  ever 
unchangeable  remembrance. 

Through  all  that  I  have  said  to-day  there  runs 
one  truth  which  I  cannot  state  too  simply  and 
strongly,  as  my  time  draws  near  its  close.  I  want 
to  make  you  feel  it  and  know  it  if  I  can.  It  is 
the  necessary  power  that  the  weaker  has  over  the 
stronger,  the  lower  over  the  higher.  It  is  a  power 
which  develops  as  all  life  grows  higher,  and  which_ 
comes  to  its  completeness  when  we  get  up  into 


VTIi.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FATTH.  175 

the  region  where  man  has  to  do  with  God.  The 
lowest  conditions  of  life  hardly  know  it  at  all. 
Think  of  the  masteries  that  are  strongest  and 
most  imperative  in  two  communities  at  the  op- 
posite extremes  of  social  life.  Into  a  village  of 
savages  comes  some  ruffian,  more  big  and  brutal 
than  any  other  who  is  there,  stronger  in  limb, 
bolder  in  arrogant  courage  ;  and  all  the  savage 
village  owns  him  as  its  master ;  all  its  people 
are  at  his  feet  in  admiration  and  obedience  ; 
what  he  bids  them  they  will  do.  Then  turn 
to  the  other  extreme.      In   some  civilised  villaore 

o 

of  England  and  America  there  is  heard  the  cry 
of  a  suffering  infant,  the  story  of  some  wrong 
done  to  a  little  child  com.es  to  men's  pitying  ears, 
and  all  the  village  is  stirred  and  will  not  rest 
until  the  wrong  be  righted,  and  the  little  child 
relieved.  That  little  child  with  its  woes  is  the 
master  of  those  strong  and  busy  men  ;  his  cry 
of  pain  summons  them  from  their  work  as  a  bugle 
calls  the  soldiers  to  the  field. 

This  power  of  weakness  over  strength  comes 
to  perfection  in  Jesus.  Could  there  be  a  more 
complete  picture  of  it  than  shines  out  in  His  own 
story  of  the  shepherd  and  the  sheep.  The  shep- 
herd has  folded  his  ninety-and-nine  ;  everything 
is  safe  and  strong  and  prosperous ;  he  stands 
with   his    hand    upon    the    sheepfold    gate  ;    and 


176  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [vill. 


then,  just  as  he  seems  all  wrapped  up  in  the 
satisfaction  and  completeness  of  the  sight,  there 
comes,  so  light  that  no  ear  except  his  can  hear  it, 
the  cry  of  one  poor  lost  sheep  off  in  the  moun- 
tains, and  it  summons  him  with  an  irresistible 
challenge,  and  his  staff  is  in  his  hand  instantly, 
and  he  turns  his  back  on  everything  else  to  be 
the  slave  of  that  one  lost  sheep  till  it  is  found. 
What  a  wonderful  and  everlasting  and  universal 
story  that  parable  is  ! 

Oh,  my  dear  friends,  we  have  not  entered  into 
Christ's  salvation,  He  has  not  rescued  and  re- 
deemed us  into  His  own  divine  life,  until  that 
which  was  true  of  Him  is  also  true  of  us.  Do 
we  know  as  He  knew  this  power  of  the  weakest  ? 
Are  our  ears  quick  as  His  were  to  hear  through 
every  tumult  the  far-away  cry  of  any  poor  human 
*oul  that  needs  us  ?  Are  our  hearts  quick  as  his 
was  to  own  the  right  which  that  cry  has  to  our 
instant  attention  and  obedience  ?  If  they  are 
not,  our  life  is  very  poor.  For  we  are  fed  through 
our  obediences  ;  and  he  who  only  knows  what 
it  is  to  obey  those  who  are  stronger  than  himself, 
he  who  has  never  felt  the  imperiousness  of  the 
need  which  cries  up  to  him  out  of  some  depth  ot 
want  or  pain,  has  missed  one-half,  the  largest  and 
richest  half,  of  the  nourishment  and  enrichment 
which  God  provided  for  his  human  life. 


VUI.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FA  IT  IT.  \^^ 

We  may  dare  to  believe  that  in  this  service  of 
weakness,  this  obedience  to  need,  this  submission 
of  His  power  to  the  demands  of  His  feeblest 
brethren,  Christ  our  Lord  found  part  of  the  de- 
velopment of  His  divine  consciousness.  Every 
beggar  whom  He  met  was  a  king  to  Him.  Let  us 
not  think  for  a  moment  that  that  was  something 
which  belonged  only  to  the  days  when  He  was 
here  upon  the  earth.  It  is  true  still.  When  you  and 
I  are  weak,  Christ  in  a  true  sense  owns  the  claim  of 
our  weakness  and  comes  to  serve  us  with  His  love. 
Behold,  how  this  transfigures  life  !  The  times  that 
make  us  weakest  and  that  force  our  weakness  most 
upon  us,  and  make  us  most  know  how  weak  we 
are,  those  are  our  coronation  times.  The  days  of 
sickness,  days  of  temptation,  days  of  doubt,  days 
of  discouragement,  days  of  bereavement  and  of 
the  aching  loneliness  which  comes  when  the  strong 
voice  is  silent  and  the  dear  face  is  gone,  these 
are  the  days  when  Christ  sees  most  clear  the 
crown  of  our  need  upon  our  foreheads,  and  comes 
to  serve  us  with  His  love. 

Faith  is  the  king's  knowledge  of  his  Ovvn  king- 
ship. A  weak  man  who  has  no  faith  in  Christ  is 
a  king  who  does  not  know  his  own  royalty.  But 
the  soul  which  in  its  need  cries  out  and  claims  its 
need's  dominion  —  the  soul  that  dares  to  take 
the   prerogative    of   its   own    feebleness    and    cry 

N 


178  THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  [vilL 

al  3ud,  "  Come  to  me,  O  Christ,  for  I  need  Thee," 
finds  itself  justified.  Its  bold  and  humble  cry  is 
honoured  and  answered  instantly ;  instantly  by 
its  side  the  answer  comes  :  "  Great  is  thy  faith : 
be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt  What  wilt 
thou  that  I  should  do  uiito  the®  ?  " 


IX. 

«WHY  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST 

HIM  OUT?"i 

"Then  came  the  disciples  to  Jesus  apart,  and  said,  "Why  could 
not  we  cast  him  out  ?  " — Matthew  xvii.  9. 

Man's  perpetual  surprise  at  his  own  weakness  is 
one  of  the  most  significant  and  pathetic  sights  in 
human  history.  Sometimes  it  seems  as  if  the 
human  race,  always  struggling  with  evils  which  it 
never  overcomes,  taking  up  in  each  new  generation 
the  unfinished  fights  with  want  and  woe  and  sin 
and  folly,  often  appearing  to  lose  the  ground 
which  the  old  generations  won,  and  slipping  back 
to  the  bottom  of  the  hill  to  begin  the  toilsome 
climb  again — sometimes  it  seems  as  if  man  must 
accept  failure  as  his  fate,  and  frankly  say,  "  I  can- 
not do  this  which  I  have  dreamed  of  doing.  I 
was  made  too  weak,"  and  so  abandon  the  attempt. 
But  no !  That  time  never  comes  with  the  race, 
and  hardly  ever  with  the  individual.      Sometimes 

1  Preached   in   V/ells  Cathedral,   Sunday  morning,    17th  July 
1883. 


i8o    "  IVIfy  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTf"    [iX. 

the  wondering  question  loses  its  energy  and 
dwindles  into  a  weak  querulousness.  But  still  it 
continues  to  be  asked  ;  still  man,  though  pros- 
trate on  the  ground,  keeps  sight  of  his  ambitions  ; 
still,  though  he  lets  himself  grow  weak  and  little, 
he  wonders  why  he  is  not  strong  and  great ;  still, 
though  he  treasures  in  his  heart  the  bad  spirits  of 
idleness  and  sensuality  and  selfishness  and  cruelty, 
something  about  him  always  bears  witness  that  he 
knows  they  are  intruders  there  ;  still  he  goes 
about  asking,  "Why  can  I  not  cast  them  out?" 
never  ceasing  to  be  surprised  at  his  own  weakness 
and  to  seek  for  its  explanation.  It  is  the  most 
significant  and  pathetic  fact  in  all  our  history ;  it 
shows  how  native  and  how  persistent  in  man  is 
his  conviction  of  his  essential  greatness.  The  boy 
starts  on  his  first  conscious  moral  struggle  as  if  it 
were  a  bit  of  play,  the  wrestling  with  an  adversary 
who  was  just  strong  enough  to  give  him  the  glow 
of  exercise,  but  whom  he  was  certain  to  cast  down 
to  the  ground  at  last.  By  and  by  he  looks  up 
panting  and  puzzled,  amazed  to  find  that  the 
struggle  has  apparently  settled  down  into  the  law 
and  habit  of  his  life,  and  cries  with  half-exhausted 
breath,  "  Why  cannot  I  cast  him  out  ?  "  Three 
score  and  ten  years  later  the  old  man,  with 
unabated  hope  but  with  unfinished  struggle,  steps 
down  into  the  river  through  which  he  must  go  to 


a.]    "  IVHV  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT?  "    i8l 

reach  the  peace  of  God,  and  his  last  murmur  is  a 
repetition  of  the  same  old  surprise,  as  he  makes  one 
last  effort  to  throw  his  sin  away — "  Why  cannot  I 
cast  him  out  ? "  And  all  the  way  between,  the 
struggle  has  been  going  on,  and  man,  always  weak, 
has  never  ceased  to  be  surprised  at  his  own  weak- 
ness. It  is  the  most  significant  and  most  pathetic 
sight  in  his  history. 

The  words  belong,  as  you  remember,  to  the 
story  of  what  immediately  followed  Christ's  trans- 
figuration. The  Lord  comes  down  from  the 
mountain  on  which  he  has  been  glorified  and 
finds  a  poor  lunatic  boy  in  convulsions  at  the 
mountain's  foot.  His  disciples  are  trying  to  cure 
the  unhappy  child.  I  low  we  can  see  their  help- 
lessness 1  Their  association  with  Jesus  had  taught 
them  to  believe  that  such  affliction  could  be  cured, 
but  when  they  tried  they  could  not  do  it.  Still 
the  poor  boy  raved  ^n.  At  last,  when  they  are 
ready  to  give  up  in  despair,  their  Master  comes  in 
sight.  The  father  of  the  child  turns  eagerly  to 
Him  ;  he  tells  Him  how  the  disciples  had  failed  ; 
and  then  Jesus  "  rebuked  the  devil ;  and  he  de- 
parted out  of  him  :  and  the  child  was  cured  from 
that  very  hour."  Then  it  was  that  "  the  disciples 
came  to  Jesus  apart,  and  said,  Why  could  not  we 
cast  him  out  ?  "  They  could  not  accept  their  own 
failure.     They  must  have  an  explanation  of  theii 


I82     "  IVHV  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTV    [ix 

weakness.  And  Jesus  tells  them  that  the  reason 
of  their  failure  is  their  unbelief.  He  says,  "  If 
you  had  had  faith  you  could  have  done  it  You 
were  weak  because  you  did  not  fill  yourselves  with 
the  power  which  stood  behind  you.  If  you  had 
faith  you  could  remove  mountains,  and  nothing 
could  be  impossible  unto  you." 

In  all  this  stoiy  I  think  there  is  a  graphic 
parable  of  that  truth  concerning  human  life  which 
I  have  tried  to  state.  Man  is  surprised  at  his 
own  weakness.  He  tries  his  strength  and  fails. 
How  the  whole  history  of  humankind  is  like  that 
scene  which  took  place  at  the  foot  of  Tabor  while 
Jesus  was  being  transfigured  on  the  top.  You 
remember  how,  in  Raphael's  great  painting  of 
Christ's  Transfiguration,  the  whole  story  is  depicted. 
Up  above  Christ  is  hovering  in  glory,  lifted  from 
earth  and  clothed  in  light  and  accompanied  on 
each  side  by  His  saints.  Down  below,  in  the  same 
picture,  the  father  holds  his  frantic  child,  and  the 
helpless  disciples  are  gazing  in  despair  at  the 
struggles  which  their  charms  have  wholly  failed  to 
touch.  It  is  the  peace  of  divine  strength  above  ; 
it  is  the  tumult  and  dismay  oi  human  feebleness 
below.  But  what  keeps  the  great  picture  from 
being  a  mere  painted  mockery  is  that  the  puzzled 
disciples  in  the  foreground  are  pointing  the  dis- 
tressed parents  of  the  child  up  to  the  mountain 


IX]    "  IVIfV  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT  V    183 

where  the  form  of  Christ  is  seen.  They  have 
begun  to  get  hold  of  the  idea  that  what  they 
could  not  do  He  could  do.  So  they  are  on  the 
way  to  the  faith  which  He  described  to  them  when 
they  came  to  Him  with  their  perplexity. 

Let  the  picture  help  to  interpret  them  to  us, 
and  is  not  the  meaning  of  Christ's  words  to  His 
disciples  this  ?  He  claims  the  disciples  for  Him- 
self. He  tells  them  that  the  reason  of  their  failure 
is  that  they  have  been  trying  to  do  by  themselves 
what  they  can  only  do  when  He  is  behind  them, 
when  their  natures  are  so  open  that  His  strength 
can  freely  flow  out  through  them.  That,  I  think, 
is  what  He  means  by  faith.  Indeed,  I  think  that 
there  is  hardly  any  word  of  Christ's  in  which  the 
true  spiritual  nature  of  faith  shines  out  so  clearly. 
The  man  who  is  so  open  Christvvard  that  Christ 
is  able  to  pour  His  strength  out  through  him  upon 
the  tasks  of  life  has  faith  in  Christ.  The  man 
who  is  so  closed  Christward  that  nothing  but  his 
own  strength  gets  utterance  upon  the  tasks  of  life 
has  not  faith,  and  is  weak  because  of  his  unbelief. 
That  is  really  Christ's  description  of  the  interest- 
ing and  pathetic  sight  of  wh«ch  I  have  spoken — of 
the  undying  wonder  of  man  at  his  own  weakness. 
This  is  the  subject  of  which  I  wish  to  speak  to 
you  to-day  and  to  make  it  plain  to  you  if  I  can. 

There  are,  then,  two  different  ideas  about  the 


I84    "  f^J^y  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTV    [iX. 

way  in  which  the  problems  of  the  world  are  to  be 
solved  and  the  salvation  of  the  world,  whatever  it 
is,  is  to  be  brought  about  Pure  irreligion  looks 
to  man  to  do  it.  Let  man  go  on  thinking,  invent- 
ing, planning,  governing,  and  the  result  must 
come.  Evil  will  be  legislated  or  engineered  out 
of  the  world,  and  all  the  better  possibilities  of  man 
attained.  Upon  the  other  hand,  a  certain  kind 
of  religion  looks  to  God  to  do  it  Let  man  lie 
still,  purely  submissive,  without  a  movement  or  a 
will,  and  God  in  His  good  time  will  bring  the 
happy  end.  The  first  of  these  two  ideas  has  no 
faith,  and  it  fails.  By  and  by  the  self-sufficient 
man  is  seen  looking  round  perplexed  upon  a  world 
in  which  all  the  old  evils  keep  their  places  in 
spite  of  all  his  legislations  and  contrivances, 
turning  up  always  in  new  forms  when  he  thinks 
that  they  have  been  destroyed  ;  and  his  voice  is 
heard  full  of  wonder  why  it  is  that  he  has  failed. 
Then  comes  the  failure  also  of  the  other  idea. 
Man  standing  aloof,  and  expecting  to  see  God 
redeem  the  world,  sees  no  such  thing.  No  flash 
out  of  the  open  sky  blasts  wickedness  away ;  no 
tempest  comes  to  do  the  work  of  purification 
which  man  has  failed  to  do.  There  too  there  is 
a  lack  of  faith.  Man  learns  that  simply  to  trust 
God  with  expectation  that  He  will  do  everything 
while  we  do  nothing  is  not  faith.     Then,  in  thd 


IX.]    "  fVJiy  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT?"    185 

failure  of  these  two  ideas  about  the  world's  sal- 
vation, comes  another  which  is  distinctly  different 
from  either.  Not  man  alone,  and  not  God  alone, 
is  going  to  purify  this  world.  But  man  and  God, 
made  one  by  perfect  sympathy,  by  the  entire 
openness  of  life  between  them,  by  perfect  love  and 
free  gift  of  himself  upon  the  part  of  God,  by  per- 
fect obedience  and  receptivity  upon  the  part  of 
man,  they  are  the  two  together — nay,  they  two 
together  are  not  two,  they  are  the  one  which  is 
to  make  the  old  world  into  the  new  world  by  the 
driving  out  of  sin.  The  principle  which  makes 
God  and  man  to  be  one  power  is  faith.  When 
man  has  faith  in  God  his  nature  so  opens  itself 
to  be  filled  with  God  that  God  and  he  make  a 
new  unity,  different  at  once  from  pure  heavenly 
divinity  and  from  pure  earthly  humanity,  the  new 
unit  of  man  inspired  by  God  ;  and  by  that  new 
unit,  that  new  being,  it  is  that  the  evil  is  to  be 
conquered  and  the  world  is  to  be  saved. 

Can  we  understand  that  ?  Let  us  take  two 
simple  illustrations  which  may  make  it  plain. 
Look  at  the  artist's  chisel.  Most  certainly  it 
carves  the  statue.  The  artist  cannot  carve  with- 
out his  chisel.  And  yet  imagine  the  chisel,  con- 
scious that  it  was  made  to  carve  and  that  that  is 
its  function,  trying  to  carve  alone.  It  lays  itself 
against  the  hard  marble,  but  it  has  neither  strength 


1 86   *'  fVIfy  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTf**    [iX. 

nor  skill  ;  it  has  no  force  to  drive  itself  in,  and  if 
it  had  it  does  not  know  which  way  it  ought  to  go. 
Then  we  can  imagine  the  chisel  full  of  disappoint- 
ment. "  Why  cannot  I  carve  ? "  it  cries.  And 
then  the  artist  comes  and  seizes  it.  The  chisel 
lays  itself  into  his  hand,  and  is  obedient  to  him. 
That  obedience  is  faith.  It  opens  the  channels 
between  the  sculptor's  brain  and  the  hard  steel. 
Thought,  feeling,  imagination,  skill  flow  down 
from  the  deep  chambers  of  the  artist's  soul  to  the 
chisel's  edge.  The  sculptor  and  the  chisel  are  not 
two,  but  one.  It  is  the  unit  which  they  make 
that  carves  the  statue. 

Look  at  the  army  and  its  great  commander. 
The  army  tries  to  fight  the  battle,  and  is  routed. 
Then  its  scattered  regiments  gather  themselves 
together,  and  put  themselves  into  the  hands  of 
the  great  general  and  obey  him  perfectly,  and 
fight  the  battle  once  more  and  succeed.  "  Why 
could  not  I  succeed  ? "  the  army  cries,  and  the 
general  answers,  "  Because  of  your  unbelief.  Be- 
cause you  had  no  faith.  You  separated  yourself 
from  me.  You  are  but  half  a  power,  not  a  whole 
power.  The  power  which  has  won  the  battle 
now  is  not  you  and  is  not  I  ;  it  is  made  up  of 
you  and  me  together,  and  the  power  which  made 
us  a  unit  was  your  obedient  faith." 

In  both  these  illustrations  we  can  see,  I  thinly 


IX.]    •'  fVIfy  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HFM  OUT?"    187 

how  it  is  that  the  condition  comes  of  which  I 
spoke  at  first,  the  condition  of  man  ever  surprised 
^t  his  own  failures  and  haunted  by  visions  of 
success.  Must  not  that  be  just  the  condition  of 
the  chisel  out  of  the  sculptor's  hand,  if  we  let  our 
imagination  clothe  it  with  a  dim  tool-like  con- 
sciousness ?  It  feels  what  it  was  made  for  ;  its 
sharp  edge  hungers  for  the  marble  ;  it  dreams  of 
statues  ;  it  is  bewildered  when  it  finds  it  has  no 
power  to  fulfil  its  dreams.  And  so  the  army 
dreams  of  victories,  and  wonders  why  it  lingers 
in  the  camp,  or  why,  if  it  goes  into  the  fight,  it 
is  driven  routed  from  the  field.  Are  they  not 
perfect  pictures  of  the  faithless  man,  of  man,  that 
is,  out  of  the  hand  of  God,  who  yet  feels  in  him- 
self the  unaccomplished  purpose  of  his  life,  who 
dreams  of  moral  triumphs,  and  after  a  thousand 
moral  failures  is  still  surprised  for  ever  that  he 
does  not  succeed. 

This  is  our  principle,  then.  The  unit  of  power 
for  moral  victory — in  other  words,  for  goodness — 
on  the  earth  is  not  man  and  is  not  God.  It  is  God 
and  man,  not  two  but  one,  not  meeting  accident- 
ally, not  running  together  in  emergencies  only  to 
separate  again  when  the  emergency  is  over ;  it 
is  God  and  man  belonging  essentially  together, 
God  filling  man,  man  opening  his  life  by  faith 
to  be  a  part  of  God's,  as  the  gulf  opens  itself  and 


1,88    "  PV//V  COULD  NOT  WE  VAST  HIM  OUTV*   [ix. 

is  part  of  the  great  ocean.  Is  that  a  fancy  and  a 
theory  ?  I  pity  the  man  whose  Hfe  has  not  made 
him  see  two  things :  first,  that  if  such  a  union  of 
God  and  man  could  come  to  pass  ;  if  man  could 
open  his  feebleness  by  faith  for  God  to  fill  with 
strength  ;  if  God  could  find  in  man  the  perfectly 
obedient  fulfiUer  of  His  righteousness,  the  work 
would  all  be  done  ;  the  problem  of  evil  would  be 
solved  ;  sin,  wretchedness,  war,  lust,  would  vanish 
from  the  earth,  and  man's  imperfectness  remain 
only  as  the  bright  road,  not  yet  travelled  but  full 
of  certain  promise  of  delight,  by  which  man  should 
for  ever  and  for  ever  come  nearer  to  his  God.  And 
second,  that  man  surely  has  a  power  of  faith,  a 
power  of  opening  his  life  and  being  filled  by  God, 
which  he  has  thus  far  used  just  enough  to  prove 
that  it  exists,  but  whose  wonderful  capacity  he 
has  yet  to  discover.  When  a  man's  life  has  given 
him  profoundly  these  two  convictions,  then  he 
must  look  forward  and  dream  of,  even  if  he 
does  not  clearly  anticipate,  a  time  in  which 
man,  with  his  whole  nature  wide  open  to  God, 
shall  make  with  God  a  unity  which  shall  subdue 
the  world  for  goodness,  when  not  man's  wish  to 
make  the  world  a  more  convenient  place  to  live 
in,  but  the  higher  and  diviner  \\»sh  to  make  the 
world  a  mirror  of  the  righteousness  of  God,  shall 
at  ^ast  cast  out  the  devils  which  have  rent  the 


a.]    "  WHY  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTV    189 


world  so  long.  And  when  a  man  lets  his  soul 
even  dream  of  such  a  consummation  there  come 
to  him  reassuring  gh'mpses  of  its  possibility  in  the 
light  of  many  a  faithful  life  which,  just  in  pro- 
portion to  its  faith,  is  seen  to  be  filled  with  the 
power  of  God  and  casts  the  devils  out  of  the  little 
world  in  which  it  lives. 

I  know  that  it  may  seem  as  if  in  speaking  thus 
I  seemed  in  some  way  to  dishonour  God  ;  but  it  is 
not  so.  "  Man  does  need  God,"  some  one  will  say  ; 
"  but  is  it  also  true  that  God  needs  man  ? "  And 
yet,  in  saying  that,  we  must  remember  that  we 
are  only  saying  what  the  Bible  says  continually. 
God  has  so  built  his  world  that  it  is  through  man 
as  the  normal  and  ordinary  means  that  He  does 
much  of  His  work  upon  fellow-man.  He  no 
doubt  still  keeps  in  His  own  hands  the  power  of 
direct  influence.  By  means  of  miracle  He  may 
step  in  and  do  without  man  that  which  man  is 
not  faithful  enough  to  allow  to  be  done  through 
Him.  But  still  the  Bible  rings  with  the  call  of 
God  to  man,  bidding  him  come  "  to  the  help  of 
the  Lord,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the 
mighty."  We  may  dismiss  that  thought,  I  think. 
The  man  who  submissively  puts  himself  in  God's 
hand  to  be  an  instrument  of  His  designs  will 
certainly  become  so  humbly  conscious  that  the 
power  is  in   God   and   nut   in   him,  that  he   will 


I90    "  fVHY  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT 9"    [iX. 

never  think  that  God  is  dishonoured  by  using 
such  an  instrument  as  he  is  for  His  work.  It  is 
he  that  is  glorified,  and  not  God  who  is  degraded 
or  accounted  weak. 

And  if  we  really  want  to  realise  the  relation, 
surely  it  is  not  hard.  We  have  its  picture  in  the 
relation  which  man  holds  to  Nature.  In  its  degree, 
so  far  as  it  is  in  its  power,  the  relation  of  man  to 
Nature  illustrates  perfectly  the  relation  which  man 
holds  to  God.  Just  as  man,  even  the  feeblest 
man,  works  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  Nature, 
he  is  strong.  Just  as  man,  even  the  strongest 
man,  tries  to  work  in  disobedience  to  the  laws 
of  Nature,  he  is  weak.  The  little  child  brings 
flame  to  wood  and  the  wood  kindles  ;  the  wisest 
scholar  or  the  strongest  giant  brings  flame  and 
stone  together,  and  the  stone  will  not  burn.  The 
ignorant  doctor  comes  to  the  sick  man  and  tries 
to  cure  him.  All  his  unskilful  treatment  fails  ; 
the  fever  still  continues  ;  the  hot  blood  will  not 
cool  ;  the  angry  pestilence  still  rages.  Then  (is 
it  not  the  story  of  Mount  Tabor  over  again  ?) 
Nature,  sublime  and  calm,  comes  down  out  of  the 
mountain  and  touches  the  sick  man,  and  says  to 
the  disease,  "  Begone,"  and  the  sick  man  is  well. 
And  then  the  doctor,  if  he  be  as  wise  and  as 
humble  as  the  Lord's  disciples,  goes  to  Nature 
apart  and  asks  the  old  question,  "  Why  could  not 


IX.]    "  IVI/y  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTt"    191 

I  cast  it  out  ?"  And  Nature  answers  just  as  Jesus 
answered,  "  Because  of  your  unbelief.  You  had 
not  faith  in  me.  You  worked  by  yourself.  You 
were  shut  up  by  ignorance  or  self-content,  so  that 
I  could  not  flow  into  you.  You  and  I  together 
ought  to  have  cured  that  man.  You  could  not  do 
it  without  me.  It  might  be  that  I  could  do  it 
without  you  ;  but  the  true  force  that  should  have 
done  it  should  have  been  you  and  I  together,  you 
filled  with  me,  I  operative  through  you  ;  you  and 
I  making  one  force."  Lift  that  discourse  out  of 
its  crude  impersonality  ;  let  the  dream  of  Nature 
be  turned  into  the  reality  of  God,  and  is  not  all 
our  doctrine  there  ?  The  power  which  is  to  sub- 
due the  world  and  drive  the  devils  out  is  made  of 
God  and  man,  united  perfectly  by  love  and  faith, 
and  made  one  power,  speaking  strong  words  before 
which  no  monstrous  usurper  on  the  earth  should 
dare  to  stand  a  moment. 

Oh,  how  the  history  of  the  world  has  lost  this 
truth  !  Now  with  a  faithless  manhood  which  felt 
no  need  and  claimed  no  presence  of  Divinity, 
the  fight  against  misery  and  sin  has  been  carried 
on.  Now,  thinking  that  God  would  do  it  all  and 
that  man  had  no  place  in  the  great  work,  an  im- 
practical religion  has  stood  by  and  waited  for  a 
miraculous  cleansing  of  the  earth  which  never 
came.      Some  day  the  perfect  power — God  using 


192    "  H^Hy  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTV*    fix. 

an  entirely  obedient  manhood,  man  perfectly  obe- 
dient and  only  asking  to  be  used  by  God — these 
two  together,  not  two  but  one,  God  in  man  and 
man  in  God,  shall  come,  and  then  the  world's  sal- 
vation draweth  nigh, — nay,  is  already  here  I 

As  I  say  this,  do  I  not  know  whither  the  hearts 
of  many  of  you  leap  at  once  ?  Do  I  not  hear  you 
say,  "  That  has  come.  That  has  been  on  the  earth 
already,  and  is  here  now  in  Him  who,  once  living, 
is  alive  for  evermore.  God  in  man  and  man  in 
God !  Why,  that  is  the  Incarnation !  that  is 
Jesus  Christ !"  Indeed  it  is,  my  friends.  Oh,  how 
it  lifts  us  away  above  the  often  petty  discussions 
of  the  marvellous  nature  of  Christ  when  we  come 
clearly  to  the  sight  of  this,  that  in  Him  certainly 
there  was  the  fulfilment  of  that  which,  when  men 
try  to  conceive  of  what  the  world  needs  most,  is  the 
complete  expression  of  their  fullest  dreams — man 
in  God  and  God  in  man  :  the  Divine  and  human 
perfectly  reconciled,  perfectly  united — not  two 
forces,  but  one  force !  That  was  the  Christ  who 
went  from  haunt  to  haunt  of  the  devils  and  bade 
them  flee  ;  and  they,  the  devils  of  hatred,  cruelty, 
lust,  selfishness,  brutishness,  superstition, — they  all 
fled  at  His  presence.  And  now  to  fill  the  earth 
with  Himself,  that  is  His  wish  and  purpose,  that 
is  what  He  is  labouring  for  through  all  these  slow 
discouraging  centuries  in  which,  beneath  the  tur- 


IX.]    "  ^Vliy  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT?"    193 

moil  and  distress  upon  the  surface,  the  watchful 
ear  can  never  fail  to  hear  below  the  sounds  which 
tell  us  that  He  is  still  at  work.  What  is  the 
real  meaning  of  His  purpose  ?  Is  He  not  try- 
ing to  make  His  brethren  what  He  was,  to  assert 
in  them  as  it  was  asserted  in  Him,  that  it  is  an  In- 
carnation, a  God  in  man  that  is  to  save  the  world  ? 
We  talk  about  Christ's  second  coming.  Whatever 
else  it  may  include,  must  it  not  certainly  include 
that — the  Incarnation  realised  throughout  all 
the  world — man  everywhere  with  his  life  opened 
by  faith  and  filled  with  God,  able  to  take  to  him- 
self the  words  of  the  Incarnate  Christ :  "  I  and  my 
Father  are  one;"  "My  Father  worketh  and  I 
work;"  "Whatsoever  things  the  Father  doeth, 
these  also  doeth  the  Son  likewise  "  ?  The  Incarna- 
tion of  God  in  Jesus  repeated  and  fulfilled  in  the 
occupation  of  a  faithful  and  obedient  humanity  by 
God,  that  is  the  promised  salvation  of  the  world. 

I  want  to  turn,  in  what  time  now  remains,  to 
a  more  personal  application  of  all  that  I  have  been 
saying  to  the  immediate  lives  of  those  who  hear 
me.  There  are  many  men  here,  many  young  men, 
who  know  something  of  what  it  is  to  struggle  with 
their  sins.  It  is  strange  how  the  a-^pect  of  that 
struggle  changes  as  a  man  goes  on  in  life.  Here 
is  a  man  who  year  by  year  has  been  growing  aware 
that   some    sin    was  getting    possession    of   him. 

O 


194    "  fVHV  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTV    [ix. 

Whatever  it  might  be — intemperance,  untruthful- 
ness, impurity,  selfishness,  idleness — whenever  he 
has  looked  up  across  his  character  in  self-survey, 
he  has  seen  the  tents  in  which  that  vice  was  en- 
camped grown  a  little  more  abundant  and  more 
bold,  just  as  a  farmer  on  his  great  western  farm 
might  see  the  huts  of  the  intruders  growing  thicker 
on  his  land.  The  vice  has  grown  bolder  and  more 
familiar.  It  has  not  hid  itself  away  in  the  valleys  ; 
it  has  climbed  more  and  more  to  the  hill-tops  of 
the  life,  and  taken  possession  of  its  richest  fields. 
All  the  time  the  man  has  been  saying  to  himself, 
"  Some  morning  I  will  rouse  myself  and  drive  this 
intruder  out,  I  know  this  vice  is  wicked  and  dis- 
graceful ;  it  shall  not  be  always  there.  Some  day 
I  will  gather  up  my  manly  strength  and  sweep  the 
whole  base  thing  away."  Well,  at  last  the  day 
came.  Something  or  other,  some  more  than 
usually  flagrant  insolence  of  the  intrusive  vice, 
some  yet  more  audacious  attempt  to  occupy  some 
choicer  and  more  sacred  fields,  some  momentary 
glimpse  of  what  the  end  must  be,  some  revelation 
from  the  best  judgment  of  his  fellow-men — some- 
thing or  other  opened  the  man's  eyes  and  made 
him  say  to  himself  that  now  that  vice  must  go. 
Do  y  u  not  know  the  easy  confidence  with  which 
he  made  his  resolution  ?  Can  you  not  see  him 
starting  out   upon   his  expedition  as  if  he  went 


IX.]    "  IVJIY  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT?''    195 

forth  to  a  summer's  frolic  ?  And  then,  oh,  my 
friends,  do  not  many  of  you  know  perfectly,  by 
your  own  experience,  what  came  next  ?  Can  you 
not  remember  the  surprise,  the  disappointment,  the 
dismay  with  which  you  found  that  the  vice  had 
become  a  part  of  your  very  life,  and  would  not  be 
ordered  away  ?  The  tree  which  you  thought  you 
could  pluck  up  and  cast  over  the  fence  in  an  in- 
stant had  its  roots  around  your  very  heart.  It  is 
wonderful  what  that  discovery  brings  to  a  man. 
If  he  is  not  much  in  earnest,  if  he  is  only  playing 
at  self-reform,  it  brings  an  end  of  all  his  effort. 
"  Well,  let  it  stay,"  he  says  ;  "  if  it  really  is  a  part 
of  me,  I  cannot  help  it.  Perhaps  it  is  not  so  bad 
as  I  thought  it  was."  But  if  he  is  in  earnest,  then 
the  very  persistency  of  the  vice  makes  it  seem  all 
the  more  dreadful.  The  discovery  of  how  hard  it 
is  to  give  up  drink  makes  the  brutality  of  drink 
look  all  the  more  horrible.  Never  did  purity 
appear  so  precious  as  when  the  libertine  finds  how 
the  poison  of  impurity  has  entered  into  his  very 
soul.  Along  with  his  horror  there  is  a  strange 
surprise.  The  unnaturalness  of  sin  is  felt  all  the 
more  as  the  intense  hold  of  sin  on  him  grows  clear. 
It  seems  every  moment  as  if  he  must  be  free  and 
yet  every  moment  the  struggle  grows  more  hope- 
less. Surprise  and  fear  blend  in  the  soul's  cry  as  it 
perseveres  in  its  almost  desperate  wrestling  with  the 


196    "  PVI/y  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUTV    [ix. 

sin  which  has  fastened  itself  upon  its  life — "  Why 
cannot  I,  oh,  why  cannot  I,  cast  him  out  ?" 

And  then  what  comes  ?  Oh,  it  is  noble  and 
pathetic,  it  is  an  everlasting  testimony  of  the  essen- 
tial childship  of  the  human  heart,  that  always  then 
man  turns  to  God.  Overcome  with  surprise  and 
terror  at  its  own  defeat,  the  heart  takes  its  task 
and  carries  it  and  lays  it  upon  God.  "  Thou,  O 
God,  must  save  me,  for  I  cannot  save  myself,"  It 
is  a  noble  impulse.  Its  perpetual  recurrence  is  the 
most  significant  thing  in  all  the  life  of  man.  It  is 
not  strange  if  sometimes — very  often — it  should 
be  distorted  ;  it  is  not  strange  that  very  often  the 
poor  man,  baffled  and  defeated  in  his  own  attempt 
to  cast  his  sins  away,  turns  to  God,  as  if  in  Him 
there  were  some  power  on  which  the  whole  work 
could  be  laid,  and  which,  without  the  man's  co- 
operation, might  do  for  him  what  he  had  so  failed 
to  do  for  himself.  But  there  is  no  power  such  as 
that  in  God ;  not  even  God  can  cast  a  man's  sins 
away  except  with  the  cordial  co-working  of  the 
sinful  man  himself  I  dare  not  preach  to  any 
sinner  here  that  there  is  nothing  for  him  to  do — 
nothing  but  to  stand  still  and  watch,  as  if  it  were 
another  man's  experience  that  he  were  watching, 
while  God  takes  his  sin  out  of  him  and  makes  him 
pure.  Sin  is  too  true  a  part  of  the  soul  which 
has  once  let  sin  into  it  for  that.     And  what  then  ? 


IX.]    "  WHY  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT?"    19} 

Not  by  our  own  struggle,  and  not  by  a  purely 
external  help  of  God.  What  then  ?  Only  by 
the  new  unit  of  power  which  is  made  of  you  and 
God  in  reconciliation  and  co-operation.  Do  you 
not  see  ?  Just  as  the  world  is  to  be  saved  at  last 
by  a  humanity  perfectly  united  with  God  through 
obedience,  of  which  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ 
was  both  the  type  and  the  means,  so  you  are  to 
be  saved  by  the  confederacy  of  your  nature  with 
God's  nature  in  the  true  submission  of  your  will 
to  His.  You  want  to  escape  from  the  slavery  of 
drink.  You  cannot  do  it  by  mere  resolution,  as 
if  you  and  the  power  of  drink  were  the  only  two 
beings  who  came  at  all  into  the  question  ;  you 
cannot  do  it  by  simply  calling  on  God  to  come 
and  release  you,  and  standing  by  yourself  to  see 
Him  do  the  miracle  ;  but  by  lifting  up  yourself 
until  you  can  put  your  will  into  the  hands  of  His 
will  as  an  instrument,  by  putting  yourself  into  His 
revelation  of  what  you  really  are,  by  saying, 
"  Lord,  save  me  ;  here  am  I  to  save  myself  with  ; 
oh,  use  me  for  my  own  salvation  ! "  So,  my  dear 
friends,  so,  and  so  alone,  you  can  be  saved. 

One  man  comes  and  says,  "  I  have  been  very 
wicked  ;  now  I  am  going  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf 
and  make  myself  very  good."  Another  man 
comes  and  says,  *'  I  am  very  wicked,  but  I  have 
prayed  to  God,  and  He  will  make  me  good."    Oh, 


198    "  fVIiV  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT?"    [ix. 

how  often  we  have  heard  them  both  ;  how  often 
both  of  them  have  failed.  Then  comes  another 
man.  Already,  before  he  speaks,  you  can  see  in 
his  face  a  mingled  determination  and  humility  in 
which  you  recognise  the  real  strength.  He  says, 
"  I  have  given  myself  to  Christ,  that  with  me  He 
may  save  me.  I  have  put  my  will  into  the  power 
of  His  love  and  holiness,  that,  wielded  by  them,  it 
may  be  fit  to  fight  with  and  to  kill  these  sins  of 
mine."  There  is  the  man,  you  know,  who  will  suc- 
ceed. Before  him  the  glorious  new  life  of  freedom 
from  sin  already  opens  with  sure  promise. 

True,  in  our  story  Christ,  when  He  came  and 
found  the  disciples  helpless  before  their  task,  did 
put  forth  His  hand  and  healed  the  sick  boy  with 
no  help  of  theirs.  But  that  was  an  exceptional 
event,  what  we  call  a  miracle.  The  great  method 
of  His  operation  when  it  was  thoroughly  established 
was  to  work  through  obedient  men.  And  here, 
it  was  not  for  the  disciples  themselves  but  for 
the  poor  lunatic  that  the  healing  was  required. 
When  he  had  work  to  do  in  them  their  own  wills 
always  must  co-operate.  It  was  Matthew's  obedi- 
ence in  the  hand  of  Christ's  commandment  that 
saved  Matthew.  It  was  Paul's  consecration  in  the 
hand  of  Christ's  grace  that  did  the  work  of  Paul. 

So  it  must  be  in  any  world  which  our  im- 
agination can  conceive  or  which  Revelation  has 


IX.]    "  WHY  COULD  NOT  WE  CAST  HIM  OUT?"    i 


99 


revealed.  No  world  can  there  be  anywhere  where 
God  can  purify  or  save  a  soul  by  mere  omnipo- 
tence ;  none  where  the  soul  must  not  itself  give 
itself  up  in  labour  for  its  own  salvation  before  it 
can  be  saved  ;  none  also,  we  dare  to  believe, 
where,  as  long  as  sin  shall  last,  all  that  shall  not 
be  possible  ;  none  where  souls  may  not  turn  and, 
giving  themselves  to  God,  give  Him  the  chance  to 
save  them. 

But  not  for  any  future  world  let  that  conver- 
sion be  delayed.  Now  is  the  time  !  Now  is  the 
day  !  Oh,  my  dear  people,  if  any  of  you  are 
struggling  with  your  sins,  I  beg  you  to  learn  the 
truth  and  see  it  wholly.  You  cannot  cast  them 
out,  but  if  you  will  give  yourself  to  Him  He  can 
cast  them  out  with  you.  Hate  your  sins  for  His 
sake  ;  hate  them  not  merely  because  they  make 
you  poor  and  wretched,  but  because  they  do  Him 
dishonour  ;  crave  holiness  because  it  is  both  His 
will  and  your  own  truest  nature  ;  let  His  love  fill 
you  with  love,  and  then  the  conquering  of  your 
sins  by  His  help  shall  be  in  its  course  one  long 
enthusiasm  and  at  the  end  a  glorious  success. 
That  is  your  hope,  and  that  hope,  if  you  will,  you 
may  seii'.e  to-day. 


X 

NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.* 

"Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Among  them  that  are  born  of  women  there 
hath  not  risen  a  greater  than  John  the  Baptist :  notwithstanding 
he  that  is  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he." — 
Matthew  xi.  1 1. 

It  is  Jesus  who  is  talking  about  John  the  Baptist ; 
and  the  question  of  which  He  is  speaking  is  one 
that  must  have  almost  necessarily  arisen  with  re- 
gard to  two  such  teachers.  Jesus  had  come  to 
establish  on  the  earth  a  higher  life  for  man.  He 
had  been  telling  men  that  they  must  enter  into 
the  new  spiritual  culture,  which,  while  it  was  the 
sequel  and  fulfilment  of  the  education  of  the  world 
which  had  gone  before,  was  yet  indeed  new  in 
Him,  was  the  creation  of  His  personal  nature  and 
His  revelation  of  God.  He  was  engaged  in  setting 
up  the  kingdom  of  God,  into  which  all  the  servants 
of  God  were  to  be  gathered,  and  where  their  lives 
were   to   be  trained.      And   in  the  midst  of  this 

^  Preached   in  Lincoln  Cathedral,  Sunday  morning,  24th  June 
1883. 


s.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  201 

great  work  it  could  not  be  but  that  men  would 
look  around  and  would  look  back.  Jesus  was 
telling  them  that  the  true  greatness  of  human  life 
must  come  by  following  Him.  It  was  inevitable, 
then,  that  men  should  ask,  "  How  is  it  about  those 
great  men  who  are  not  His  followers  ;  those  great 
men  who  have  gone  before  Him  ;  those  great  men 
who  are  wholly  outside  of  His  influence — are  they 
not  truly  great  ?  And  if  they  are,  what  has  be- 
come of  His  saying  that  true  greatness  lies  only 
in  Him,  and  in  the  kingdom  of  God  to  which  He 
is  so  earnestly  summoning  us  ? "  This  was  the 
question  that  must  have  come  into  many  minds 
as  Jesus  spoke.  To  this  question  Jesus  gave  His 
answer — "  Among  them  that  are  born  of  women 
there  hath  not  risen  a  greater  than  John  the 
Baptist :  notwithstanding  he  that  is  least  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he."  Because 
the  question  which  brought  forth  this  answer  is 
not  obsolete,  but  is  on  men's  minds  in  many 
shapes  to-day,  I  propose  to  you  that  we  should 
study  Christ's  answer  for  a  while  this  morning. 

And  notice,  first,  that  it  is  a  question  which 
belongs  not  to  the  things  of  Christ,  nor  to  religious 
things  alone.  All  life  suggests  it  ;  for  in  all  life 
there  are  these  two  ways  of  estimating  the  probable 
value  of  men — one  by  the  direct  perception  of 
their  characters,  the  other  by  the  examination   0/ 


202  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [x. 

the  institutions  to  which  they  belong,  and  the 
privileges  which  thej^  enjoy.  Think  of  the  school- 
boy who  is  just  graduating  from  one  of  our  public 
schools,  and  of  Socrates  who  died  more  than  two 
thousand  years  ago  in  Greece.  The  schoolboy 
represents  the  privileged  condition  which  is  the 
result  of  centuries  of  civilisation.  Knowledge  has 
been  offered  him  every  day,  on  every  page  of  his 
school-books,  of  which  the  great  Greek  sage  never 
dreamed  ;  facts  are  trite  commonplaces  to  him, 
before  whose  slightest  suggestion  Socrates  would 
have  stood  and  laughed  at  their  impossibility.  The 
privilege  of  the  schoolboy's  life  is  manifest  enough. 
The  dullest  boy  in  all  the  class  cannot  help  know- 
ing things  which  were  utterly  out  of  the  power  of 
the  ancient  philosopher.  And  what  then  ?  Is 
the  schoolboy  greater  than  Socrates  ?  In  one 
sense  certainly  he  is  :  greater  in  the  richness  of 
circumstance,  in  the  opportunity  of  knowledge,  in 
the  profusion  and  luxuriance  of  life ;  but  the 
moment  that  we  ask  the  question,  there  stands 
out  at  once  the  personal  greatness  of  the  great 
man,  which  no  distance  of  time  can  dim,  and  no 
inferiority  of  circumstances  can  disguise.  The 
schoolboy  dwindles  to  a  grain  of  sand  beside  the 
mountain  of  his  lofty  genius.  These  are  the  two 
evident  facts.  The  schoolboy  belongs  to  a  higher 
order,  a  higher  range  of  life,  and  so  is  greater  in 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  203 

his  circumstances,  in  the  necessity  of  his  condi- 
tion ;  but  the  philosopher  is  greater  in  himself, 
unspeakably,  immeasurably  greater  in  his  personal 
genius.  How  shall  we  describe  it  better  than  in 
some  echo  of  the  words  which  Jesus  spoke  about 
John  the  Baptist.  The  philosopher  is  among  the 
very  greatest  of  historic  men  ;  but  the  least  of 
modern  men  has  that  which  he,  with  all  his  eat- 
ness,  could  not  have. 

Here,  then,  we  see  the  two  elements  :  there  is 
the  greatness  of  nature,  and  there  is  the  greatness 
of  circumstances.  They  are  distinct  from  one 
another ;  they  do  not  make  each  other.  A  man 
may  be  great  in  nature  and  yet  live  among  the 
meagrest  surroundings.  A  man  may  live  in  the 
most  sumptuous  profusion  of  privileges,  and  yet 
be  a  very  little  man.  They  are  distinct.  One 
does  not  make  the  other  ;  and  yet  the  two  have 
close  relations  ;  each  has  a  tendency  towards  the 
production  of  the  other.  The  higher  plane  of  living 
is  always  trying  to  make  the  man  greater,  so  that 
he  may  be  worthy  of  it  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  more  the  man  grows  great,  the  more  he 
struggles  to  discover  and  attain  some  higher  plane 
of  life.  In  every  fullest  picture  of  human  life  the 
two  combine  ;  the  great  man  in  the  fullest  atmo- 
sphere alone  entirely  satisfies  our  imagination.  But 
if  they  must  be  separated,  as  to  some  degree  they 


204  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [x. 

always  must,  nothing  can  destroy  the  honour 
which  belongs  to  personal  character  struggling 
under  the  most  adverse  circumstances  to  assert  its 
greatness  and  to  do  its  work. 

But  now,  if  these  definitions  have  made  the 
conditions  of  the  problem  plain,  we  are  ready  to 
go  on  to  the  truth  which  is  included  in  what  Christ 
says  about  John  the  Baptist.  Christ  recognises 
the  two  elements  of  personal  greatness  and  of  lofty 
condition,  and  He  seems  almost  to  suggest  another 
truth,  which  is  at  any  rate  familiar  to  our  experi- 
ence of  life,  which  is  that  personal  power  which 
J  as  been  manifest  in  some  lower  region  of  life 
seems  sometimes  to  be  temporarily  lost  and  dimmed 
with  the  advance  of  the  person  who  possesses  it 
into  a  higher  condition.  What  really  is  a  progress 
seems,  for  a  time  at  least,  tc  involve  a  loss.  Think 
how  this  appears  in  our  observation  of  the  world. 
The  college  student  graduates  next  week,  and  from 
the  calm  seclusion  of  scholastic  life  he  goes  out 
into  the  wrestling  with  business  forces  or  the  eager 
rivalry  of  his  profession.  He  has  really  passed  up 
into  a  higher  life  ;  but  sometimes  he  looks  back 
and  sighs  for  the  peace  and  dignity  which  the  old 
life  enjoyed.  The  thinker,  anywhere,  tries  to  apply 
his  thought,  and  though  the  contact  with  men,  into 
which  that  effort  brings  him,  disturbs  his  equa- 
nimity and  throws  him  into  perplexities  which  lie 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  205 

knew  nothing  of  before,  he  too  has  really  mounted 
to  a  higher  life.  The  aesthetic  student  tries  to  be 
useful  ;  and  it  is  only  through  painful  shocks  to 
his  sensibilities,  and  a  disturbance  of  the  symmetry 
of  life  in  which  his  soul  delights,  that  he  passes 
into  the  loftier  condition  where  he  can  help  his 
fellow-men.  Everywhere  that  which  seems  to  have 
perfected  itself  in  the  lower  sphere  displays  its 
imperfection  when  it  passes  up  to  higher  tasks. 
Thought,  which  has  grown  clear  and  self-com- 
placent in  the  study  of  the  physical  world,  bewil- 
ders itself  and  is  baffled  when  it  attempts  to  study 
God.  Government,  which  seems  to  have  mastered 
the  problems  of  despotism,  loses  its  equilibrium 
and  is  feeble  once  more  when  it  attempts  the 
higher  tasks  of  freedom. 

You  remember,  perhaps,  the  noble  and  beauti- 
ful verses  in  which  Robert  Browning,  standing 
among  the  great  pictures  in  Florence,  speaks  in 
their  behalf  across  the  centuries  of  the  Greek 
statues  which  have  confessedly  a  perfectness,  an 
absolute  completeness,  in  their  own  domain  of 
beauty  which  the  great  Christian  pictures  cannot 
boast.  It  is  the  finiteness  (  f  view  and  purpose  of 
the  great  classic  works  which  gives  them  the 
chance  to  be  complete  : — 

*♦  To-day's  brief  passion  limits  their  range, 

It  seethes  with  the  morrow  for  us  and  mor& 


2o6  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [». 

They  are  perfect — how  else  ?  they  shall  never  change : 
We  are  faulty — why  not  ?  we  have  time  in  store. 

The  Artificer's  hand  is  not  arrested 

With  us — we  are  rough-hewn,  no-wise  polished  : 

They  stand  for  our  copy,  and,  once  invested 

With  all  they  can  teach,  we  shall  see  them  abolished." 

It  is  a  strange  perplexing  fact  of  life,  this  fact 
that  as  a  being  or  a  work,  which  has  seemed  per- 
fect in  some  lower  region,  goes  up  to  some  higher 
region,  it  seems  to  grow  imperfect  ;  at  least  it 
manifests  its  imperfection.  We  can  see  at  once 
what  a  temptation  it  must  offer  to  the  human 
powers  to  linger  in  some  lower  sphere,  in  which 
they  seem  to  be  equal  to  their  work,  instead  of 
going  freely  up  into  a  loftier  world  where  they 
shall  learn  their  limitations  and  their  feebleness. 
There  is  reason  enough  to  fear  that  man's  power 
of  thought,  revelling  to-day  in  the  clearness  with 
which  it  seems  to  see  the  lower  world  of  physical 
existence,  will  refuse  some  of  the  higher  duties 
which  belong  to  it,  the  duties  which  most  tax  its 
capacity  and  show  its  feebleness,  the  duties  of 
understanding  the  soul  of  man  and  reaching  after 
the  comprehension  of  God.  Sad  will  it  be  if  it  is 
so  ;  if  studious  humanity,  delighted  with  its  achieve- 
ments in  the  mere  region  of  physical  research, 
shall  turn  its  back  on  the  lofty  tasks  in  which 
man's  intellect  finds  its  greatest  glory  as  well  a? 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  2fyj 

its  most  complete  humility — the  struggle  to  know 
God. 

In  ordinary  life  the  power  of  this  temptation, 
the  temptation  to  be  satisfied  with  greatness  in 
some  lower  sphere  and  not  to  aspire  to  the 
highest  sort  of  existence,  is  constantly  appearing. 
What  multitudes  of  men  there  are  all  through 
society  who  seem  to  have  limited  and  shut  in 
their  lives  to  some  little  range  of  occupations 
which  they  can  fulfil  with  reasonable  credit  to 
themselves,  and  never  seem  to  think  that  there  is 
any  call  for  them  to  do  more  than  to  complete 
themselves  in  that  poor  little  scheme  of  life,  never 
seem  to  dream  that  they  ought  to  go  up  to  a 
distinctly  other  life  with  higher  tasks  and  more 
difficult  exactions.  An  idle,  good-natured  crea- 
ture, who  has  accepted  his  place  and  fills  it,  who 
amuses  and  is  amused,  who  keeps  the  world  about 
him  in  good -humour,  and  is  great  in  the  adorn- 
ment of  his  own  person  and  the  management  of 
petty  etiquette ;  one  of  the  coolest  things  on  earth, 
I  think,  is  the  quiet  effrontery  with  which  such 
a  man  rests  absolutely  satisfied  with  his  insect 
greatness,  and  criticises  the  blunders  and  feeble- 
ness which  men  of  course  develop  who  are  setting 
themselves  to  do  some  really  useful  work  in  the 
world.  He  treats  them  and  talks  of  them  as  if 
they  belonged  to  a  different  world  from  his,  and 


2o8  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [x. 

there  could  be  no  possible  call  for  him  to  under- 
take the  same  effort  with  all  its  risks  and  ex- 
posures. One  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in 
the  world  is  this  power  of  men  to  draw  themselves 
a  line  beyond  which  they  never  dream  of  counting 
themselves  responsible,  across  which  they  look 
and  judge  with  cruellest  criticisms  the  men  who 
are  really  fighting  the  world's  sins  and  troubles 
on  the  other  side,  as  if  of  them  there  were  no 
more  to  be  asked  than  just  that  they  should  be 
perfect  in  their  own  self-limited  world  of  elegant 
uselessness.  Never  a  brave  reformer  tries  to  break 
down  a  popular  sin  or  to  build  up  some  new  and 
needed  progress,  taking  on  himself  the  responsi- 
bility which  a  true  man  ought  to  take,  but  these 
self-satisfied  critics  gather  around  him  to  criti- 
cise his  methods  and  to  ridicule  his  blunders,  but 
never  lift  a  hand  to  show  how  they  too  would 
blunder  if  they  let  themselves  step  outside  of  their 
safe  and  limited  and  petty  life. 

This,  I  think,  is  the  way  in  which  most  men 
of  the  world  look  at  Christianity  and  at  the  efforts 
of  their  brother  men  to  live  a  Christian  Hfe.  "  I 
am  no  Christian,"  says  the  practical  man  ;  "  I  do 
not  pretend  to  be  pious  or  religious."  And  then 
he  looks  up  in  your  face  as  if  he  had  settled  the 
whole  question,  as  if  his  entire  business  thence- 
forth were  just  to  stand  by  and    ee  what  sort  of  a 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES  209 

Christian  you  were  and  how  your  piety  came  on. 
"  I  do  my  duty  as  a  plain  unreligious  man."'  he 
says  ;  "  I  make  no  professions."  There  is  a  tone 
of  scornful  pity  as  he  speaks.  He  realises — but 
not  more  keenly  than  the  poor  Christian  realises 
himself — how  the  believer  in  Christ,  the  man  who 
is  trying  to  honour  and  obey  a  Divine  Master, 
stumbles  and  blunders  in  his  attempt  to  keep 
company  with  the  Infinite.  For  himself  he  has 
abandoned  any  such  attempt,  and  seems  by  some 
strange  self-delusion  to  have  brought  himself  to 
feel  that  his  abandonment  of  the  attempt  has 
released  him  from  any  responsibility  about  it. 
You  see  how  foolish  and  how  base  such  a  position 
is.  It  is  the  soldier  who  has  shirked  the  battle 
criticising  the  torn  uniform  and  broken  armour 
and  bleeding  limbs  of  his  comrade  who  comes 
staggering  out  of  the  fight.  It  is  the  ship  which 
has  lain  snugly  and  uselessly  beside  the  wharf 
jeering  at  the  broken  bulwarks  and  torn  sails  with 
which  its  sister  ship  comes  reeling  in  from  her 
long  voyage.  He  who  lingers  in  some  lower  life 
because  there  he  is  able  to  keep  his  complacency 
and  not  to  fall  so  far  short  of  his  manifest  duty 
as  to  cover  himself  with  shame,  has  no  right  to 
compare  himself  with  the  feeblest  and  most  un- 
successful of  the  children  cf  God,  who,  unable  to 
be  satisfied  as   long  as   tiere   is   a  spiritual  life 

P 


2IO  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES,  [x, 

which  he  is  not  living,  has  set  boldly  forth  and 
entered  at  least  into  the  outskirts  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  into  the  determination  and  struggle  to 
live  a  religious  life. 

There  must  be  some  such  people  here  to-day. 
There  must  be  some  men  here  who  are  satisfied 
with  doing  their  duty  in  some  lower  sphere  of  life 
and  leaving  the  higher  spheres  entirely  untouched, 
satisfied  to  be  honest  in  business  and  kind  to  their 
families  and  pure  in  their  daily  lives,  and  leaving 
unattempted  the  whole  effort  to  know  God  and  to 
live  in  communion  with  Him,  as  if  they  had  no 
more  call  to  deal  with  that  region  of  life  than  they 
have  to  go  up  and  walk  among  the  stars.  Surely 
they  must  see  that  that  is  not  a  perfect  life. 
Surely,  when  they  have  once  caught  sight  of  it, 
that  higher  unappropriated  region  of  living,  that 
unentered  kingdom  of  heaven  must  entice  them 
with  an  invitation  which  will  not  let  them  rest. 
No  true  man  can  live  a  half  life  when  he  has 
genuinely  learned  that  it  is  only  a  half  life.  The 
other  half,  the  higher  half,  must  haunt  him.  God 
giant  that  it  may  haunt  every  one  of  you  until  he 
arises  and  insists  on  the  fulfilment  of  his  life  by 
the  cordial  and  enthusiastic  acceptance  of  the 
obedience  of  God. 

One  puzzles  himself  sometimes  in  the  attempt 
to  grasp  the  entire  meaning  of  those  great  words 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES,  211 

of  Christ  to  Nicodemus.  "  You  must  be  born 
again,"  the  Master  said.  Does  not  the  substance 
of  its  meaning  He  in  the  truth  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking  ?  Nicodemus  wanted  Christ  to 
meet  him  in  a  lower  world,  a  world  of  moral 
precepts  and  Hebrew  traditions,  where  the  Phari- 
see was  thoroughly  at  home.  But  Christ  said, 
"  No,  there  is  a  higher  world  ;  you  must  go  up 
there ;  you  must  enter  into  that  ;  you  must 
have  a  new  birth  and  live  in  a  new  life, — in  a 
life  where  God  is  loved  and  known  and  trusted 
and  communed  with.  Not  merely  a  better  life 
of  the  old  kind,  but  a  new  kind  of  life.  Except 
you  be  born  again,  you  cannot  see  the  kingdom 
of  God,  which  is  that  new  kind  of  life  ;  and  he 
who  is  least  in  that  kingdom,  he  who  has  in  any 
degree  begun  to  live  that  higher  kind  of  life  has 
something  which  the  best  and  noblest  soul  in  the 
inferior  life  has  not,  is  greater  than  the  greatest 
who  is  not  in  the  kingdom." 

The  progress  from  one  kind  of  life  into  a 
higher  kind,  from  one  realm  into  a  yet  deeper 
and  more  central  region  of  God's  kingdom,  is 
always  pressing  ;  it  can  never  be  outgrown.  Not 
merely  when  a  man  becomes  a  Christian,  but 
always  afterwards  when  some  deeper  and  holier 
and  maturer  region  of  Christian  life  opens  before 
him,  the  summons  comes  to  move  on,  to  advance 


212  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [x. 

into  that  higher  realm.  When  the  religion  which 
has  been  living  on  mere  authority  is  called  upon 
to  become  a  religion  of  clear  personal  conviction  ; 
when  to  the  religion  of  sentiment  is  offered  the 
test  and  privilege  of  active  duty ;  when  the  re- 
ligion of  the  single  experience  is  bidden  to  gra- 
duate into  a  wide  human  sympathy, — in  all  these 
cases,  the  same  sort  of  thing  occurs  which  occurs 
when  the  man  of  the  world  is  first  summoned  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  to  become  a 
Christian.  The  door  of  a  new  room  of  life  is 
thrown  open,  and  the  soul  which  has  lived  faith- 
fully in  the  first  room  is  bidden  not  to  rest  satis- 
fied with  that  faithfulness,  but  to  pass  on  into  the 
second.  May  God  give  us  grace  and  faith  and 
courage  and  ambition  always  to  be  ready  for  that 
call,  and  to  pass  on  and  up  to  higher  kinds  of  life, 
to  new  kingdoms  of  heaven  as  He  shall  open 
them  to  us  for  ever. 

And  now,  in  the  remainder  of  this  sermon  I 
want  to  dwell  upon  another  application  of  our 
truth  which  I  cannot  help  hoping  may  throw  some 
light  upon  a  question  which  I  know  has  puzzled 
many  of  us.  I  want  to  see  how  it  applies  to  the 
explanation  and  understanding  of  a  true  and 
noble  life  lived  in  a  false  faith.  Many  of  you 
recognise  that  question,  I  am  sure.  You  have 
encountered  its  bewilderment.      Perhaps  you  are 


X.1  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  213 

encountering  it  now.  Here  is  a  creed  which  you 
know  to  be  false,  or  to  be  wofully  imperfect :  it 
either  denies  or  it  ignores  the  truths  which  you 
know  are  supremely  true.  And  here  is  a  man 
who  holds  this  false  or  this  imperfect  faith  :  he 
either  asserts  what  you  are  sure  is  bitter  error,  or 
else  he  denies  what  you  are  sure  is  precious  truth. 
And  that  man  is  a  good  man.  He  is  a  great 
deal  better  man  than  you  are.  His  life  makes 
you  ashamed.  He  is  generous,  brave,  pure,  un- 
selfish. His  character  shines  like  a  star.  Every 
one  who  sees  it  is  better  and  stronger  for  the  sight. 
Do  you  not  know  the  bewilderment  which  comes  ? 
Do  you  not  know  the  questions  which  such  a 
sight  suggests  ?  Is,  then,  my  faith  mistaken,  or  is 
all  faith  a  matter  of  no  consequence  ?  Are  faith 
and  character  totally  indifferent  to  each  other  ? 
Has  faith  no  influence  on  life  ?  These  are  the  first 
questions.  They  are  full  of  darkness.  The  light- 
ing-up  comes  when  we  see  that  there  are  really 
two  elements,  the  man's  own  personality  and  his 
conditions.  To  make  the  highest  man  both  of 
these  must  be  complete.  In  the  case  we  have 
supposed,  the  personality  is  noble,  but,  if  you  are 
right,  the  conditions  are  very  faulty.  The  real 
question  concerning  that  friend  of  yours  is  not, 
How  does  he  in  his  unbelief  compare  with  you  in 
your  belief?    but,   How  does  he   in   his   unbelief 


214  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [x. 

compare  with  what  he,  the  same  man,  would  be  if 
he  believed  ?  Ask  yourself  that  question  about 
your  noble  atheist,  or  your  pure-minded,  lofty- 
hearted  heretic,  and  I  think  you  will  surely  give 
yourself  the  answer  that,  however  beautiful  that 
soul  may  seem  to  you  now,  you  know  that,  touched 
by  the  faith  of  Christ,  there  is  a  distinct  new 
beauty,  another  kind  of  grace  and  exaltation  which 
it  certainly  would  win. 

It  seems  to  me  to  be  very  much  like  the  ques- 
tion of  the  place  of  a  man's  residence.  You,  an 
Englishman,  full  of  the  sense  of  privilege  which 
belongs  to  your  country's  place  in  the  front  rank 
of  civilisation,  send  your  pity  across  the  seas  to 
Africa  or  Asia.  To  live  there  seems  to  you  a 
dreadful  thing.  The  ignorance  of  barbarism  or 
the  corruption  of  decaying  civilisation  are  dread- 
ful even  to  the  thought.  But  as  you  congratulate 
yourself  upon  your  privilege,  you  happen  to  hear 
the  story  of  some  savage  life.  You  are  told  of 
one  of  those  rare  natures  which  shine  every  now 
and  then  in  the  heart  of  barbarism  :  a  man  brave, 
generous,  tender,  conscientious,  true.  What  is  the 
result  ?  Do  you  throw  away  all  your  claims  ? 
Do  you  say  England  is  no  better  than  Africa  ? 
What  ought  to  be  the  result  ?  Is  it  not  very  clear  ? 
A  new  and  deeper  honour  for  this  humanity  oi  ours 
which  will  not  wait  for  favourable  circumstances, 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  2lS 

but  even  from  the  most  unfavourable  soils  will 
throw  up  here  and  there  its  choicest  flowers  ;  a 
deep  shame  at  the  thought  of  how  our  civilisation 
has  failed  of  very  much  which  it  ought  to  have 
done  ;  but  at  the  same  time  a  clear  sense  that  the 
best  influences  of  civilisation  might  have  made  of 
that  noble  savage  a  far  nobler  being  even  than  we 
see  him  now,  and  a  renewed  conviction,  enforced 
even  by  the  sight  of  this  notable  exception,  that 
civilisation  on  the  whole  makes  finer  men  than 
barbarism.  The  sight  of  the  savage's  nobleness 
enlarges  my  thought  of  humanity,  awakens  my 
shame  for  the  defects  of  civilisation,  but  does  not 
make  me  want  to  turn  African  myself,  nor  to  call 
upon  the  world  to  go  back  into  the  jungle. 

Now  why  should  it  not  be  just  exactly  so  when 
I  see  the  noble  life  of  a  man  whose  faith  I  believe 
is  all  wrong,  or  is  wofully  imperfect.  Let  me  not 
dare  to  say  that  his  is  not  true  nobleness.  That 
confuses  my  moral  standards  and  throws  me  into 
the  worst  hopelessness.  Let  the  sight  of  him  give 
me  a  new  faith  in  the  power  of  human  nature  to 
be  generous  and  good,  which  can  break  tUrough  the 
most  oppressive  circumstances,  and  open  into  flower 
out  of  the  most  barren  soils.  Let  it  make  me 
ashamed  of  the  small  show  of  generosity  and  good- 
ness which  I  with  my  better  faith  am  able  to  dis- 
play ;   but  let  it  not  delude  me  into  saying  that 


2i6  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES,  [x. 

what  I  know  is  my  better  and  fuller  faith  is  a 
thing  of  no  consequence  ;  let  it  not  hide  from 
me  the  fact  that  my  infidel  friend  with  all  his 
excellence  would  be  a  finer  and  nobler  man  than 
his  own  present  self  if  he  believed  in  the  truth  and 
lived  in  the  power  of  that  which  I  know  to  be  the 
faith  of  God  ;  let  it  not  lead  me  to  forget  that 
the  real  power  of  a  faith  is  to  be  estimated  not  by 
the  influence  of  its  presence  or  its  absence  in  indi- 
viduals who  may  be  exceptional,  but  by  its  effect 
upon  broad  stretches  of  human  history  over  wide 
areas  of  time  and  space. 

My  dear  friends,  I  do  believe  that  this  is  the 
simple  truth  which  a  good  many  puzzled  people 
among  us  need  to  know.  The  Christian,  with  his 
unbelieving  friend,  whose  daily  life,  so  pure,  up- 
right, and  honest,  shames  the  poor,  half-discouraged 
believer  every  day, — what  can  you  say  to  him  ? 
First  bid  him  rejoice  that  his  Christ  can  and  does 
do  for  that  friend  of  his  so  much  even  while  that 
friend  denies  Him.  Then  bid  him  see  that  if  that 
friend  of  his  could  consciously  know  and  cordially 
acknowledge  the  Christ  who  is  doing  so  much  for 
him  already,  he  would  give  that  Christ  a  chance 
to  do  still  more  which  now  He  cannot  do.  Then 
let  him  for  himself  be  filled  with  an  inspiring 
shame  which  shall  make  him  determined  to  be 
worthier   of  his   higher   faith.     This  is  the   true 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  217 

ministry  which  ought  to  come  to  any  Christian 
from  the  presence  of  a  man  who  believes  far  less 
than  he  does,  and  is  a  far  better  man  than  he  is. 

You  can  see  at  once  how  all  of  this  must  tell 
upon  the  whole  idea  of  Christian  missions.  There 
may  have  been  a  time — though  I  think  more  and 
more  that  nothing  is  so  delusive  as  the  attempt  to 
realise  and  restate  the  religious  notions  of  our 
fathers — there  may  perhaps  have  been  a  day  when, 
in  order  to  make  it  seem  right  for  the  Christian 
world  to  send  missionaries  to  the  heathen,  it  re- 
quired to  be  made  out  that  all  heathen  virtue  was 
a  falsehood  and  delusion.  That  day  is  past,  if 
ever  it  existed.  But  one  of  the  first  re'mlts  of  a 
cordial  acceptance  of  the  idea  that  human  nature 
even  in  the  depths  of  pagan  darkness  docs  feel  the 
power  of  God  and  send  forth  noble  lives,  has  been 
to  stir  the  question  whether,  if  that  were  so,  we 
need,  or  even  whether  we  ought,  to  send  them 
Christianity.  There  have,  beyond  all  doubt,  been 
glorious  self-sacrifices,  saintly  embodiments  of 
purity,  shining  instances  of  spiritual  aspirations  in 
classic  heathenism,  and  even  in  barbarian  idol- 
worship.  Shall  we  to  systems  out  of  which  such 
lives  can  come  offer  our  Christianity  as  their 
necessary  hope,  their  one  complete  salvation  ?  Is 
there  not  light  upon  this  question  in  our  thoughts 
of  this  morning?     May  not  the  Christian  world 


2i8  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [x. 

stand  glorying  in  every  outbreak  of  the  heathen's 
goodness  as  a  sign  of  the  power  with  which  his 
Christ,  even  unknown,  may  fill  a  human  life  which 
in  the  very  darkness  of  its  ignorance  is  obedient  to 
whatever  best  spiritual  force  it  feels  ?  May  not 
that  very  sight  reveal  to  him  what  that  aspiring 
heathenism  might  become  if  it  could  be  made 
aware  of  the  Christ  whom  it  is  in  its  unconscious- 
ness obeying — as  the  very  sight  of  the  dim 
beauty  in  which  the  earth  lies  before  the  sunrise 
fills  us  with  hopes  and  visions  of  what  it  will  be 
when  the  glory  of  the  noon  is  all  ablaze  upon  it  ? 
May  not  the  Christian,  even  while  he  goes  out  to 
tell  the  heathen  his  completer  gospel,  be  filled 
with  an  inspiring  shame  at  hi.s  own  poor  use  and 
exhibition  of  the  power  of  that  gospel  which  he 
offers  to  the  heathen  world  ?  This  is  the  true 
attitude  of  Christendom  to  paganism.  It  is  not 
arrogant ;  it  brings  no  insult  ;  it  comes  like  brother 
to  brother,  full  of  honour  for  the  nature  to  which 
it  offers  the  larger  knowledge  of  the  Father's  life. 
To  such  broad  missionary  impulse  as  that  let  us 
be  sure  that  the  increase  of  rational  and  spiritual 
Christianity  will  only  add  ever  new  and  stronger 
impulse  and  inspiration. 

The  truth  which  underlies  all  that  I  have  said 
this  morning  seems  to  me  to  be  very  clear  and 
most  important.      It  is  the  truth  that  behind  every 


X.]  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  219 

system  or  dispensation  for  the  education  of  human 
life  and  character  lies  human  life  and  character  it- 
self;  and  that,  however  the  dispensation  may  be 
needed  to  bring  man  to  his  best,  his  powers  and  so 
his  responsibilities  are  there  before  the  dispensation 
comes  to  do  its  work.  This  is  true  even  of  the 
supreme  dispensation  of  the  manifestation  of  God 
in  Jesus  Christ.  By  that  alone  can  man  fulfil  his 
life,  and  yet  before  that  comes,  man  in  the  twilight 
has  the  capacity  for  noble  living,  and  so  is  bound 
to  attain  it.  And  yet  his  attainment  of  noble 
living  anterior  to  Christianity  does  not  relieve  him 
of  the  duty  or  deprive  him  of  the  privilege  of  tak- 
ing the  full  revelation  of  God  which  is  offered  to 
him  when  at  last  Christ  comes.  This  is,  I  think, 
the  teaching  of  the  Saviour  when  He  says,  "  Of 
them  that  are  born  of  women  there  hath  not  risen 
a  greater  than  John  the  Baptist :  notwithstanding 
he  that  is  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater 
than  he." 

It  would  be  easy  to  see  how  this  truth  applies 
to  the  relation  which  man  holds  to  all  the  highest 
institutions  and  dispensations  for  his  spiritual  life. 
It  applies  to  the  Church,  to  the  Lord's  Supper,  to 
the  attainment  of  assured  and  certain  faith  about 
religious  things.  I  must  not  dwell  upon  these 
special  applications,  but  only  in  one  last  word  beg 
you  to  see  how  true  and  strong,  how  satisfied  and 


220  NATURE  AND  CIRCUMSTANCES.  [x. 

yet  how  expectant  a  life  in  general  this  truth  in- 
volves. No  blindness  or  deprivation  of  oppor- 
tunity in  which  you  live,  oh,  my  friend,  deprives 
you  of  the  right  and  duty  of  being  a  good  man. 
Remember  that,  and  never  dare  forget  it.  And 
yet  no  power  to  be  a  good  man  in  the  darkness 
gives  you  a  right  to  shut  your  eyes  to  any  light 
which  God  may  offer  you  to  lead  you  to  the 
heights  of  some  new  land  of  goodness  where  you 
may  be  a  better  man.  That  is  the  faith  which 
makes  a  man  work  earnestly  and  joyously  upon 
the  earth,  yet  never  losing  out  of  his  sight  the 
promised  heaven,  and  so  being  ready  for  every 
summons  to  come  up  higher  which  the  Master 
sends — always  ready  for  the  final  welcome  : 
"  Thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will 
make  thee  ruler  over  many  things  :  enter  thou 
into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 


XI 

THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.* 

••Thinkest  thou  that  I  cannot  now  pray  to  my  Father,  and  he  shall 
presently  give  me  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels?  But 
how  then  shall  the  scriptures  be  fulfilled,  that  thus  it  must 
be  ? " — Matthew  xxvi.  53. 

In  his  epistle  to  the  Philippians  St.  Paul  gives  a 
very  earnest  exhortation  to  his  disciples,  setting 
the  example  of  their  Master  before  them  in  a 
wonderful  way.  "  Let  this  mind  be  in  you,"  he 
says,  "  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus  :  who,  being 
in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be 
equal  with  God :  but  made  Himself  of  no  reputation, 
and  took  upon  Him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and 
was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men."  The  glory  of 
Christ  is  in  His  willing  surrender  of  that  which 
belonged  to  Him,  and  which  He  might  have  always 
had  and  enjoyed.  It  is  certainly  interesting  to 
find  Christ  Himself  dwelling  on  this  same  fact  in 
His  history  of  which   His  disciple  speaks.      It  is 

1  Preached   at    the   church   of  St.   Peter -at -Arches.   Lincoln, 
Sunday  evenine.  24th  June  1883. 


THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xL 


in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane.  The  multitude 
whom  the  chief  priests  had  sent  was  just  arresting 
Jesus.  Then  one  of  His  disciples  drew  his  sword 
and  showed  resistance.  But  Jesus  bade  him  put 
his  sword  into  its  place  again.  He  tells  His 
eager  follower  that  if  He  wants  to  He  can 
protect  Himself :  "  Thinkest  thou  that  I  cannot 
now  pray  to  my  Father,  and  He  shall  presently 
give  me  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels  ? " 
But  then  He  thinks  of  how  the  work  He  has  to 
do  makes  such  escape  impossible.  He  waves  the 
thought  aside  :  "  But  how  then  should  the 
scriptures  be  fulfilled,  that  thus  it  must  be  ?  "  For 
a  moment  it  seems  as  if  the  helpless  prisoner,  held 
tight  there  between  His  enemies,  looked  up  and 
saw  the  air  thick  with  angels  hurrying  down  to 
His  relief.  The  grip  upon  His  arms  grew  loose  ; 
He  heard  his  Father's  voice  behind  the  angels 
commanding  them  to  save  Him.  Their  bright 
swords  flashed  around  Him,  and  he  was  free  and 
safe.  All  this  was  not  an  impossible  dream  ;  it 
was  something  that  might  be  true.  A  word  of  His 
might  summon  it.  For  an  instant  the  word  seems 
almost  to  be  trembling  on  His  lips.  But  then  He 
says  to  Himself,  "  No,  I  must  not.  I  came  to  do 
things  which  I  could  not  do  if  I  should  let  myself 
do  this.  I  have  the  power,  but  I  will  not  use  it ; '' 
and  so  He  shuts   His  eyes  upon  the  vision  of  the 


XL]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  223 

angels,  and  goes  on  to  the  trial  and  the  scourging 
and  the  cross. 

"  Let  this  mind  be  in  us,"  said  Christ's  apostle, 
"which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus."  I  want  you 
to  think  this  evening  of  the  nobleness  of  this 
surrender  of  Jesus,  and  of  the  way  in  which  no 
man  becomes  really  noble  who  has  not  somehow 
its  repetition  in  himself  The  act  itself  which  I 
have  pictured  must  stir  any  generous  soul.  Christ, 
with  freedom  and  honour  waiting  at  His  call, 
quietly  shutting  His  lips  and  refusing  to  call  them, 
and  going  on  into  suffering  and  shame, — that  is  one 
of  the  scenes  which  we  may  make  a  test-scene  of 
human  character.  The  man  who  calls  that  volun- 
tary self-surrender  foolish  shows  that  he  is  himself 
ignoble.  Everything  that  there  is  noble  in  a 
man's  nature  leaps  up  to  honour  it  ;  and  every- 
where, where  the  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus 
has  been  in  any  other  man,  that  other  man's 
brethren  have  felt  his  nobleness.  To  give  up 
some  precious  thing  which  is  legitimately  yours  ; 
to  shut  your  eyes  upon  visions  of  glory  or  safety 
or  luxury  which  you  might  make  your  own  with- 
out a  shade  of  blame,  that  is  so  truly  one  of  the 
marks  of  nobleness  that  no  man  is  accounted  by 
the  best  standards  truly  noble  who  is  not  doing 
that  in  some  degree.  The  man  who  is  taking  all 
that   he   has   a    right   to    take   in    life   is  always 


224  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [ij. 

touched  with  a  suspicion  and  a  shade  of  baseness. 
There  is  a  paradox  in  it,  no  doubt ;  one  of  those 
moral  paradoxes  which  make  the  world  of  mora, 
study  always  fascinating.  Man  has  no  right  to 
take  his  full  rights  in  the  world  ;  he  is  not  wholly 
noble  unless  he  sees  the  higher  law  which  declares 
that  all  is  not  his  to  take  which  is  his  legitimately 
to  own.  Let  us  try  to  study  this  nobleness  of 
voluntary  surrender  a  little  while  to-night. 

And  first,  we  want  to  feel  how  definite  and 
distinct  it  is.  There  are  base  imitations  of  it  with 
which  we  must  not  let  it  be  confounded.  There 
are  two  different  kinds  of  renunciation  of  things 
which  we  have  the  right  and  power  to  possess 
which  have  their  origin  in  motives  which  are 
unworthy  of  our  human  nature  and  degrade  it 
Let  us  look  at  each  of  them  for  a  moment  or  two 
before  we  turn  to  the  noble  and  ennobling  re- 
nunciation from  which  they  must  always  be  dis- 
tinguished. 

The  first  of  the  two  is  the  renunciation  which 
comes  from  idleness  or  lack  of  spirit.  There  will 
always  be  people,  there  are  people  among  us,  who 
might  be  rich  or  learned  or  famous,  who  despise 
wealth  or  fame  or  learning  simply  because  of 
the  trouble  which  they  involve ;  and  such  a  maui 
often  seems  to  himself,  and  seems  sometimes  to  his 
friends,  to  be  doing  something  fine  and  heroic  in 


XL]  THE  WILLING  SUR.'IENDER.  225 

standing  outside  of  the  rush  and  hurly  burly 
of  human  life,  and  with  the  superior  air  of  a 
spectator  who  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  ropes 
watching  and  criticising  the  wrestlers  who  are 
struggling  in  the  race.  In  the  curious  world  of 
college  life,  one  of  the  constant  characters  is  the 
man  who  might  do  anything,  and  does  absolutely 
nothing.  He  is  in  every  class ;  he  always  has 
been,  and  he  always  will  be — the  man  who  is 
supposed  to  be  voluntarily  withholding  the  hand 
which,  if  he  chose  to  stretch  it  out,  might  easily 
pluck  the  highest  honours.  He  is  probably  always 
more  or  less  of  a  fraud.  If  he  exerted  himself  he 
would  be  found  to  be  very  much  like  other  men  ; 
and  the  reason  why  he  does  not  exert  himself  is 
not  that  he  is  above,  but  that  he  is  below  the 
ambitions  which  incite  his  fellows.  In  the  world 
of  faith  there  are  always  men  who  abandon  think- 
ing, that  they  may  escape  the  disturbance  of  their 
opinions.  They  praise  themselves,  other  men 
perhaps  praise  them,  because  they  have  no  doubts, 
but  surely  the  surrender  which  they  make  is  a  loss 
and  not  a  gain,  a  disgrace  and  not  an  honour. 
Everywhere  we  must  discriminate.  Such  re- 
nunciations as  these  have  nothing  in  common 
with  the  divine  relinquishment  of  Jesus.  Vastly, 
vastly  better  is  the  most  eager,  headlong,  passionate 
pursuit  of  reputation,  comfort,  learning,  truth,  than 

Q 


226  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xi,. 

this  abandonment  of  struggle,  which  means  nothing 
but  laziness  and  torpor. 

The  second  of  the  two  base  forms  of  voluntary 
surrender  is  what  we  may  call  in  general  the  ascetic 
form.  It  includes  all  those  renunciations  of  legi- 
timate employments  and  enjoyments  which  are 
made  directly  and  purely  for  the  effect  of  such 
renunciations  on  ourselves — either  that  we  may  be 
mortified  and  chastened  by  disappointment,  or  that 
an  appetite  for  some  desirable  thing  may  be  whetted 
by  restraint.  It  is  under  this  last  motive  that  many 
people  seem  to  feel  as  if  even  religion  and  the  service 
of  God  would  suffer  if  it  were  made  too  common, 
if  it  were  brought  close  and  kept  close  to  human 
life,  if  it  were  made  the  power  by  which  every 
least  action  were  to  be  moved.  This  sort  of  renun- 
ciation, which  really  has  its  source  in  a  certain 
doubt  of  the  sufficiency  of  the  best  things  to  become 
a  continual  experience,  is  exquisitely  expressed  in 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets, 
where  the  withholding  of  the  grasp  from  what  is 
genuinely  in  its  power  is  vividly  portrayed : — 

"  So  am  I  as  the  rich,  whose  blessed  key 
Can  bring  him  to  his  sweet  up-locked  treasure. 
The  which  he  will  not  every  hour  survey. 
For  blunting  the  fine  point  of  seldom  pleasure. 
Therefore  are  feasts  so  solemn  and  so  rare, 
Since,  seldom  coming,  in  the  long  year  set, 


XL]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  227 

Like  stones  of  worth  they  thinly  placed  are, 
Or  captain  jewels  in  the  carcanet. 
So  is  the  time  that  keeps  you  as  my  chest, 
Or  as  the  wardrobe  which  the  robe  doth  hide, 
To  make  some  special  instant  special  blest, 
By  new  unfolding  his  imprison'd  pride." 

It  is  far  from  being  a  subject  upon  which  good 
and  thoughtful  men  are  agreed.  Probably  it  is  a 
subject  on  which  there  will  never  be  complete  agree- 
ment. Probably  the  difference  of  men's  natures  and 
temperaments  will  always  make  them  judge  differ- 
ently regarding  it  But  to  me  it  seems  as  if  the 
simply  ascetic  renunciation  of  any  good  and  healthy 
thing, — that  is  to  say,  the  renunciation  of  it  purely 
and  directly  for  the  effect  which  its  surrender 
may  have  upon  the  character  of  the  man  who 
renounces  it,  or  for  the  heightening  of  the  value  of 
the  thing  itself — had  an  essential  unreality  about 
the  act,  and  implied  a  distrust  of  the  relinquished 
object  which  must  defeat  its  own  purpose  and 
make  the  self-surrender  worthless. 

These,  then,  are  the  two  kinds  of  relinquish- 
ment which  we  lay  aside  and  put  out  of  the 
question.  Now  turn  back  again  to  Jesus.  When 
He  said,  "  I  will  not  call  the  angels,"  it  was  no 
pusillanimous  submitting  to  His  fate  ;  nor  was  it 
any  unnatural  submitting  of  Himself  to  suffering 
that  He  might  be  cultivated  and  puiified,  or  that 


228  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xt 

the  release  from  suffering  when  it  came  might  be 
more  sweet.  There  is  no  such  refinement  and 
self-consciousness  as  that  in  all  His  life.  It  is 
simply  that  He  has  a  work  to  do,  and  that  if  the 
angels  come  and  snatch  Him  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  ruffianly  Jews,  His  work  will  not  get  done. 
Therefore  He  shuts  His  eyes  upon  the  angels  and 
closes  His  lips  and  will  not  call  them,  and  is 
dragged  away,  to  Annas  first,  and  then  to  Pilate, 
and  then  to  the  cross.  It  was  the  quiet  surrender 
of  what  was  truly  His,  because  He  could  not  have 
it  and  yet  do  His  work  and  save  the  world. 

Let  us  take  at  once  two  or  three  of  the  most 
familiar  illustrations  which  we  can  think  of  in  our 
ordinary  life,  and  see  how  there  this  sort  of  sur- 
render wins  from  us  all  the  same  sort  of  honour 
when  we  see  it  in  our  fellow-men  which  it  has 
when  we  see  it  in  our  Master  Christ.  There  is 
one  spectacle  which  never  fails  to  impress  a  com- 
munity like  that  of  one  of  our  modern  cities, 
which  is  largely  mercantile  in  its  standards, — a 
spectacle  whose  constant  recurrence  is  one  of  the 
perpetual  illuminations  and  redemptions  of  the 
sordid  tendencies  of  life, — a  spectacle,  indeed,  which 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  we  could  spare  from  among 
the  influences  by  which  the  life  of  a  community 
is  kept  pure  and  high.  When  a  man  who  might 
be  rich  deliberately  gives  up  the  chance  of  wealth 


XI.]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  229 

that  he  may  be  a  scholar,  men  whose  object  in 
life  is  wealth,  and  who  know  that  he  has  the  same 
power  to  get  wealth  which  they  have  if  he  should 
give  himself  to  its  pursuit,  must  honour  him  and 
feel  the  influence  of  his  renunciation.  It  is  not 
laziness,  for  he  goes  to  work  harder  than  any  of 
them.  It  is  not  asceticism,  for  he  has  no  foolish 
sweeping  abuse  of  wealth  with  which  to  insult  his 
fellow- men's  intelligence.  It  is  not  incapacity, 
for  he  is  as  bright  as  the  brightest.  It  is  simply 
the  power  of  a  higher  purpose.  It  is  the  calm, 
manly,  uncomplaining  choice  to  do  this  greater 
thing,  and  to  surrender  whatever  would  hinder  the 
doing  of  it  most  faithfully  and  well.  The  man 
goes  off  into  his  study,  and  thinks  that  nobody 
sees  him, — indeed,  does  not  think  for  a  moment 
whether  anybody  is  seeing  him  or  not ;  but  his  life 
and  such  lives  as  his  are  the  salt  of  the  society  in 
which  they  live. 

There  is  another  picture  which,  when  one  has 
his  eyes  open  to  discover  it,  gives  a  pathetic 
beauty  to  many  a  quiet  household  with  its  family 
life.  The  land  is  full  of  households  where  the 
father  and  mother  have  no  ripe  cultivation,  have 
never  been  able  to  take  time  or  th'  ught  for  study 
and  its  blessings  and  delights,  but  out  of  which 
the  children  come  forth  furnished  with  all  that  the 
most  careful  cultivation  can  bestow,  radiant  with 


230  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER,  [xt 

the  happiness  and  helpfulness  of  culture.  What 
does  it  mean  ?  It  is  not  that  the  father  and 
mother  had  not  the  capacity  or  that  they  had  not 
the  love  for  learning.  They  appreciated  it ;  per- 
haps they  lived  all  their  life  long  in  hunger  for  it. 
The  very  careful  care  with  which  they  provided  it 
for  their  dearer  selves,  their  children,  sending  their 
boys  to  college  while  they  stayed  and  worked 
upon  the  farm  or  in  the  shop  at  home,  shows  how 
they  knew  the  worth  of  what  they  did  not  take 
themselves.  Many  a  time  they  looked  up  and 
saw  the  angels  only  waiting  for  a  word  to  lift 
their  wings  and  come  ;  many  a  time  their  lips 
opened  impatiently  to  speak  the  word  ;  and  yet 
every  time  they  left  the  word  unspoken  and 
turned  back  to  their  meagre  work  again,  saying 
in  their  hearts,  "  How  then  should  the  scriptures 
be  fulfilled,  that  thus  it  must  be  ? "  "  Is  it  not 
written  in  the  scripture  of  my  fatherhood  that  I 
must  make  my  child  a  way  into  the  richest  know- 
ledge, even  though  my  own  life  be  laid  level  with 
the  ground  that  he  may  walk  over  it  ?  "  Is  there 
a  more  beautiful  sight  in  all  the  earth  than  that  ? 
What  triumphant  life  standing  upon  the  summit 
of  human  knowledge  and  looking  wide  over  all 
the  vast  expanse  has  half  the  real  glory  which 
belongs  to  the  father-life  work  ng  hard  in  the 
darknes"  at  the  mountain's  foot  and  by  his  hard 


XI.]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  231 

work  making  possible  that  climbing  of  his  son 
into  the  celestial  light. 

In  Thomas  Carlyle's  delightful  Reminiscences 
of  his  father,  which  have  been  published  since 
the  great  writer's  death,  there  are  these  beautiful 
words  about  the  rude  and  sturdy  stonemason  from 
whom  he  sprang  :  "  I  feel  to  my  father — so  great 
though  so  neglected,  so  generous  also  towards  me 
— a  strange  tenderness,  and  mingled  pity  and 
reverence  peculiar  to  the  case,  infinitely  soft  and 
near  my  heart.  Was  he  not  a  sacrifice  to  me  ? 
Had  I  stood  in  his  place,  could  he  not  have  stood 
in  mine,  and  more  ?  Thou  good  father  !  well  may 
I  for  ever  honour  thy  memory.  Surely  that  act 
was  not  without  its  reward.  And  was  not  nature 
great,  out  of  such  materials  to  make  such  a  man  ?  " 
It  is  a  beautiful  and  noble  tribute,  but  as  we  read 
it  we  are  ready,  I  think,  to  feel  that  the  man  who 
could  deserve  it  was  even  greater  than  the  man 
who  could  write  it. 

No  man  in  this  world  has  a  right  to  all  his 
rights  ;  that  is  the  paradox  which  states  our 
truth.  It  often  seems  as  if  the  highest  and  pro- 
foundest  truths  could  not  be  stated  except  in 
paradox.  "  If  one,  is  always  claiming  his  rights,'' 
says  a  German  author,  "  the  world  is  like  a  hell." 
Here  is  really  the  key  to  that  question  about 
voluntary   abstinence    from    certain    innocent    in- 


232  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xi. 

dulgences  for  the  sake  of  other  people,  which  is  a 
very  pressing  question  to  many  people  in  our 
time,  a  question  whose  prominence  indeed  in  our 
time  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  symptoms  of 
the  moral  condition  which  the  world  has  reached. 
We  may  be  sure  that  it  is  no  low  condition  of 
moral  life  in  which  men  are  constantly  urging 
upon  themselves  and  upon  one  another  abstinence 
from  pleasures  which  in  themselves  are  perfectly 
legitimate,  because  of  the  influence  which  free 
indulgence  in  those  pleasures  might  have  upon 
other  people.  And  it  is  hard  to  think  that  any 
person  of  awakened  moral  sense  in  days  like  these 
does  not  recognise  this  duty  of  the  sacrifice  of 
things  to  which,  looking  only  at  themselves  and 
at  him,  he  has  a  most  indisputable  right.  It  is 
in  the  matter  of  temperance,  so  called  (though 
there  are  serious  objections  to  the  restriction  of 
the  name  of  temperance  to  the  restraint  which  is 
exercised  with  reference  to  the  one  indulgence  of 
strong  drink), — it  is  in  the  matter  of  so-called 
temperance  that  the  principle  of  which  we  are 
speaking  has  grown  most  familiar.  And  there  is 
a  quiet  beauty  which  I  think  nobody  can  help 
feeling  in  the  fact  that  there  are  thousands  of 
people  in  England  and  America  to-day  who  are 
unostentatiously  restricting  or  refusing  themselves 
in  an  i.idulgence  which  they  more  or  less  desirQ 


XI.]  THE  IVILLIA'G  SURRENDER.  233 


and  which  they  know  would  be  for  them  wholly 
innocent,  lest  they  should  do  harm  to  the  lives 
and  characters  of  any  of  their  brethren.  There  is 
a  moral  beauty  in  such  a  voluntary  act  which,  in  its 
small  degree,  is  of  the  same  kind  with  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ.  Only  we  always  must  remember  that 
the  beauty  of  such  an  act  is  in  its  voluntariness, 
and  that  to  make  such  relinquishment  obligatory 
either  by  statute  law  or  social  edict  is  to  rob  it  of 
its  essential  character.  The  beauty  of  it  is  gone 
so  soon  as  the  relinquishment  becomes  not  a 
man's  willing  surrender  of  what  he  might  retain, 
but  the  forced  yielding  of  that  which  a  state  law 
or  the  despotism  of  a  public  opinion  has  for- 
bidden. 

And  in  the  same  principle  we  see  what  neces 
sary  and  impassable  limits  there  are  to  the  moral 
power  of  any  prohibitory  legislation.  It  may  be 
very  necessary  ;  it  often  is  ;  but  they  who  urge  it 
most  ought  to  feel  deeply  that  it  is  always  super- 
ficial and  always  temporary.  With  regard  to  all 
things  not  essentially  and  necessarily  wrong,  with 
regard  to  all  things  which  a  man  has  a  right  to 
do  until  some  higher  obligation  comes  in  to  con- 
trol his  right,  you  stand  on  no  sure  ground  till 
you  have  brought  your  fellow-men  to  self-control. 
All  saying  to  a  man,  "  You  shall  not  do  that,"  is 
of  little  use  unless  it  is  leading  on  to  a  time  *vhen 


234  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  Ixi. 

he  shall  say  of  himself,  "  I  will  not  do  that.  I 
might  do  it  if  I  would,  but  I  will  not  do  it.  I 
have  a  right  to  do  it,  but  I  have  no  right  to  use 
my  right." 

You  see  how  voluntariness  lies  at  the  root  of  it 
all.  It  is  in  the  power  which  was  in  us  to  be 
something  else  that  the  moral  beauty  of  being  any 
good  thing  which  we  are  resides.  There  is  a 
beautiful  life  conceivable  which  should  have  been 
made  involuntarily — by  a  compulsion  which  it 
could  not  have  resisted — obedient  and  perfectly 
harmonious  to  the  eternal  goodness.  Such  a  life 
would  be  indeed  beautiful :  a  thing  for  men  and 
angels  to  admire  ;  a  thing  for  God  to  look  down 
on  with  delight  as  the  sun  looks  down  upon  its 
own  image  in  a  crystal  lake.  But  its  beauty 
would  not  be  moral  beauty.  Its  beauty  would  be 
like  the  beauty  of  a  strain  of  music  or  the  beauty 
of  a  statue — not  the  true  beauty  of  a  character, 
not  the  beauty  of  a  man  ;  for  there  can  be  no  true 
beauty  of  character  where  there  is  not  voluntari- 
ness. We  talk  about  the  glory  of  resignation  to 
the  inevitable  ;  and  it  is  glorious.  To  stand  with 
a  smile  upon  your  face  at  a  stake  to  which  you  are 
chained,  and  from  which  you  cannot  get  away, 
that  is  heroic.  But  t!  e  true  glory  is  in  resignation 
to  the  evitable.  To  stand  unchained,  with  perfect 
power  to  go  away,  with  perfect  certainty  that  no 


XI.]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  235 

man  would  drive  you  back — to  stand  held  only 
by  the  invisible  chains  of  higher  duty,  and,  so 
standing,  to  let  the  fire  creep  up  to  the  heart — 
that  is  the  truer  heroism.  And  there  are  men  and 
women  whom  we  meet  every  day  in  the  streets, 
by  whose  side  we  sit  every  Sunday  in  our  pews, 
who  are  doing  that.  Men  call  them  fools.  No  man 
would  blame  them  ;  many  men  would  praise  them 
if  any  day  they  gave  up  the  self-imposed  duty  of 
their  life  and  went  through  the  gate  that  stands 
wide  open  into  the  unrestrained  enjoyment  of  life. 
If  the  mother  stopped  being  a  slave  to  her  un- 
grateful son,  if  the  merchant  let  go  the  hopeless 
struggle  to  pay  his  honest  debts,  if  the  brother 
shook  off  his  shoulders  the  weight  of  his  worthless 
brother's  life  and  sprang  forward  to  the  honours 
that  seem  to  be  within  his  grasp,  there  is  no  voice 
that  would  say  a  word  of  blame.  The  world  of 
successful  men  would  welcome  with  a  shout  this 
wise  man  who  at  last  had  broken  through  the 
hedge  which  had  been  shutting  him  up  to  failure 
and  set  himself  free  to  take  his  rights.  But  what 
would  the  man's  soul  say  to  itself  about  it  all  ? 
Would  any  success  make  up  for  the  concession 
with  which  the  man  had  won  it  ?  Would  not  the 
brightest  fields  of  his  new  prosperity  be  haunted 
by  the  cry  with  which  that  hapless  worthless 
brother  sank  into  the  waves  when  he  shook  him 


236  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xi- 

off  as  he  struggled  toward  this  golden  shore  ?  He 
has  claimed  his  right  to  success  ;  and  everybody 
except  himself  owns  that  he  had  a  right  to  claim 
it ;  but  he  himself  knows  that  it  was  a  right  which 
he  had  no  right  to  claim. 

Oh,  my  dear  friends,  you  know  little  of  life  if 
you  do  not  know  that  there  is  always  a  sadness  at 
the  heart  of  every  success.  To  have  done  any- 
thing in  the  way  which  men  choose  to  call  suc- 
cessful must  always  bring  revelations  of  how 
imperfectly  it  has  been  done.  Men  who  have 
watched  your  climbing  send  their  cheers  up  to  you 
as  if  you  were  standing  on  the  summit ;  but  you, 
from  where  you  stand,  can  see  how,  peak  beyond 
peak,  the  mountain  range  stretches  away  from  you 
into  the  clouds.  To  succeed  is  always  sad  ;  but 
to  succeed  by  the  casting  away  of  any  of  the 
chances  of  goodness  and  of  useful  work  which  God 
offered  us,  not  merely  to  find  that  we  have  not 
reached  the  mountain's  top,  but  to  have  climbed 
to  where  we  are  only  by  casting  off  the  bundles  of 
responsibility  that  God  gave  us  to  carry,  that  is 
beyond  all  things  wretched. 

I  always  like  to  trace  how  the  laws  which  apply 
to  action  apply  also  to  thought.  Let  me  remind 
you  very  briefly  of  the  way  in  which  there  are 
voluntary  surrenders  of  mental  comfort  and  peace 
which  the  truest   minds  cften  are  ready  to  make, 


XL]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  237 

and  out  of  which,  if  they  make  them,  there  comes 
in  the  end  a  richer  and  completer  wisdom.  A 
man  deliberately  turns  his  face  to  the  hard  prcb  • 
lems  of  the  universe.  "  If  God  is  good,  vvhat 
means  this  world  full  of  pain  ?"  "  If  Christ  has 
saved  the  world,  why  all  this  endless  uproar  and 
strife  of  sin?"  "If  God  is  light,  why  are  His 
children  walking  in  darkness  ?"  "  How  could  God 
have  made  men  who  He  knew  would  be  wicked  ?" 
"What  is  the  future  of  the  souls  that  obstinately 
sin  ?"  You  ask  yourselves  these  questions  ;  you 
carry  them  about  upon  your  heart.  Of  course,  in 
all  the  pews  around  you  there  are  people  enough, 
good  friends  of  yours,  who  say  to  you,  "  Why  need 
you  think  about  those  things  ?  Are  you  not  safe  ? 
Are  you  not  sure  of  happiness  ?  You  have  a  right 
to  peace,  rest,  comfort,  the  assurance  of  entire 
faith  ;  take  it,  and  do  not  worry  over  questions 
which  are  too  high  or  too  deep."  But  all  your 
heart  responds,  "  I  cannot  rest ;  I  must  know  all 
I  can  know  ;"  and  so  you  deliberately  give  up  the 
peace  of  unquestioning  repose  and  go  out  into 
the  sea  where  the  questions  cross  and  recross, 
and  beat  one  another  like  the  beating  of  the 
waves. 

And  now,  what  shall  we  say  about  all  this — 
this  voluntary  surrender  of  that  which  is  legiti- 
mately ours,  because  of  some  higher  duty  which 


238  THE   WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xi. 

can  only  be  done  in  and  by  such  renunciation  ? 
What  can  we  say  but  this  :  it  is  the  law  of  God, 
that  wherever  there  is  duty  there  is  also  possible 
joy.  Just  as  the  man  who  sees  foliage  knows  that 
somewhere  there  must  be  water,  although  his  eyes 
or  ears  cannot  discern  it,  and  the  trees  seem  to 
grow  out  of  the  sand  ;  so  the  man  who  is  sure  that 
in  any  spot  there  is  duty  for  him  to  do  knows  that 
there  is  a  happiness  for  him  somewhere  in  the 
doing  of  that  duty,  even  though  for  the  present  it 
seems  to  be  a  dreadful  drudgery.  In  the  expec- 
tation of  that  joy  he  works.  The  expectation  of 
joy  is  joy  ;  and  so  the  man  who  in  his  voluntari- 
ness surrenders  some  delight  or  privilege,  finds 
that  there  is  a  subtler  mastery  of  happiness  which 
is  to  be  gained  only  by  giving  it  up  and  seeking 
something  higher,  though  for  the  time  it  seems  to 
separate  us  from  the  happiness  we  love.  Many 
and  many  an  experience  there  is  in  this  world 
which  gives  us  the  right  to  believe  that  happiness 
is  something  very  coy  and  wilful,  which,  when  we 
chase  it,  runs  away  from  us  ;  but,  when  we  turn 
away  from  it  and  seek  for  something  better,  and 
forget  to  seek  it,  changes  its  mind  and  chases  us. 
You  remember,  perhaps,  in  Tennyson's  Enoch 
Arden — which  whole  poem,  indeed,  is  a  picture  of 
the  truth  which  I  have  tried  to  state  to-night — 
how,  when  Enoch  has  made  his  resolution  and 


XI.]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  239 

deliberately  determined  that  he  will  not  claim  the 
home  to  which  he  has  a  right,  and  has  settled 
down  to  his  solitary  life,  these  lines  describe  his 
condition  : — 

"  He  was  not  all  unhappy.     His  resolve 
Upbore  him,  and  firm  faith,  and  evermore 
Prayer  from  a  living  source  within  the  will. 
And  beating  up  thro'  all  the  bitter  world. 
Like  fountains  of  sweet  water  in  the  sea. 
Kept  him  a  living  soul." 

What  are  such  words  as  these  but  an  echo  of  the 
strong  words  of  Jesus,  which  declared  that  if  a 
man  lost  his  life  for  the  highest  purposes,  "  for 
my  sake  and  the  gospel's,"  he  should  find  it.  In- 
deed there  are  various  half-mystic  words  of  Christ 
which  explain  and  illuminate  this  truth,  of  which 
our  own  experience  bears  witness,  that  when  a  man 
voluntarily  surrenders  that  which  is  legitimately  his 
for  some  sublimer  claim,  he  does  not  really  lose 
it ;  its  spiritual  essence,  its  precious  soul,  remains 
with  him,  and  is  still  his.  Think  of  these  words 
in  which  the  Lord  described  the  recompense  of 
those  who  abandoned  everything  for  His  sake — 
'*  I'here  is  no  man  that  hath  left  house,  or  brethren, 
or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife,  or  children, 
or  lands,  for  my  sake,  and  the  gospel's,  but  he  shall 
receive  an  hundredfold  now  in  this  time,  houses,  and 
brethren,  and   sisters,  and  mothers,  and  children, 


240  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xi. 

and  lands,  with  persecutions  ;  and  in  the  world  to 
come  eternal  life."  The  thing  he  gives  away,  that 
very  thing,  in  its  real  substance,  in  its  true  value, 
he  shall  have 

Shall  we  not  think  that  Christ  spoke  all  His 
deep  words  out  of  His  own  experience.  He  Him- 
self had  known  what  it  was  to  gain  the  life  He 
lost,  to  have  the  thing  that  He  surrendered.  When 
He  gave  up  the  home  of  the  foxes  and  the  birds, 
it  was  to  find  a  home  all  the  more  deeply  in  His 
Father's  love.  When  he  refused  to  call  the  angels 
to  His  help,  the  strength  which  was  the  meaning 
of  the  angels  was  surely  entering  into  Him,  and 
making  Him  ready  for  the  battle  which  He  was 
just  about  to  fight. 

This,  then,  is  the  sum  of  the  whole  matter. 
There  will  come  to  every  manly  man  times  in  his 
life  when  he  will  see  that  there  is  something  which 
is  legitimately  his,  something  which  he  has  a  right 
to,  something  which  nobody  can  blame  him  if  he 
takes  and  enjoys  to  the  fullest,  and  yet  something 
by  whose  voluntary  and  uncompelled  surrender  he 
can  help  his  fellow-man  and  aid  the  work  of 
Christ,  and  make  the  world  better.  Then  will 
come  that  man's  trial.  If  he  fails,  and  cannot 
make  the  sacrifice,  nobody  will  blame  him  ;  he 
will  simply  sink  into  the  great  multitude  of  hon- 
ourable,   respectable,    self-indulgent    people   who 


XL]  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  241 

take  the  comfortable  things  which  everybody  owns 
that  they  are  entitled  to,  and  live  their  easy  life 
without  a  question.  But  if  he  is  of  better  stuff, 
and  makes  the  renunciation  of  comfort  for  a  higher 
work,  then  he  goes  up  and  stands — humbly,  but 
really — with  Jesus  Christ.  He  enters  into  that 
other  range,  that  other  sort  of  life,  where  Jesus 
Christ  lived.  He  is  perfectly  satisfied  with  that 
higher  life.  He  does  not  envy,  he  does  not  grudge, 
the  self-indulgent  lives  which  he  has  left  behind. 
He  does  not  count  up  what  he  has  lost ;  he  does 
not  ask  whether  he  is  happier  or  less  happy  than 
he  would  have  been  if  he  had  kept  what  every- 
body says  he  had  a  right  to  keep.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  happiness  with  him  at  all ;  but  grad- 
ually, without  his  seeking  it  or  asking  anything 
about  it,  he  finds  that  the  soul  of  the  happiness 
which  he  has  left  behind  is  in  him  still.  Like 
fountains  of  sweet  water  in  the  sea,  it  rises  up  and 
keeps  him  a  living  soul.  He  has  left  the  world's 
pleasures  and  its  privileges  only  to  draw  nearer  to 
its  necessities,  which  are  its  real  life.  So  what  he 
gave  he  keeps,  a  thousandfold  even  in  this  present 
time,  and  eternity  is  all  before  him,  in  the  end 
everlasting  life. 

If  there  is  any  young  life  here  which  wants  to 
be  its  best,  let  it  be  ready,  not  to  throw  away  its 
privileges  in  cynical  contempt  of  them,  but  to  let 


242  THE  WILLING  SURRENDER.  [xL 

any  of  them  go  when  God  reveals  to  it  some  pur- 
pose of  a  noble  service,  or  an  exalted  suffering  in 
which  He  may  have  made  it  possible  for  that  young 
life  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  and  to  carry  on  the 
work  of  Chrislt 


GAMALIEL.* 

*•  Gamaliel,  a  doctor  of  the  law,  had  in  reputation  among  all  Iftie 

people." — Acts  v.  34- 

It  is  strange  how  a  single  name  here  and  there 
out  of  the  great  multitude  of  perished  and  for- 
gotten names  secures  remembrance.  It  is  almost 
as  when  one  stands  upon  the  seashore  and  looks 
out  across  the  sea,  and  here  and  there  upon  the 
surface  of  the  great  ocean,  all  gray  and  monotonous, 
there  comes  one  flash  of  silver  ;  one  single  wave 
all  by  itself  leaps  up  as  if  it  were  alive,  and  burns 
with  a  lustre  which  compels  the  eye  to  look  at  it. 
You  ask  yourself  why  that  especial  wave  should 
have  such  peculiar  privilege,  and  there  is  only  one 
answer  you  can  give.  It  is  not  any  larger  wave 
than  the  rest,  and  it  is  made  of  no  different  water 
from  them  ;  it  is  simply  that  that  wave  happened 
to  leap  just  where  the  sun  was  smiting,  and  so  the 

^  Preached  at  the  Temple  Church,  London,  bunday  morning 
SBt  July  1883. 


244  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

sun  smote  it,  and  it  became  illustrious.  So  it  is 
with  the  illustrious  men.  The  sun  of  history  shines 
on  this  great  sea  of  human  life  ;  and  the  special 
career  which  happens  to  leap  just  where  the  sun 
is  striking  catches  his  glory  and  seizes  men's 
notice  and  remembranv !  If  the  man's  life  is 
larger  than  other  lives,  so  much  the  better, — it 
catches  so  much  more  of  sunshine.  If  it  is  of 
special  fineness,  made  of  more  lustrous  stuff  than 
other  men's,  so  much  the  better  still, — It  turns  the 
sunshine  into  a  peculiar  radiance.  But  still  the 
essential  thing  is  that  it  should  leap  at  the  right 
moment  and  should  be  turned  the  right  way. 
With  those  conditions  even  a  very  common  life 
becomes  illustrious  ;  and  without  them  the 
largest  and  the  finest  character  melts  back  into 
the  bosom  of  the  humanity  out  of  which  it  sprung, 
unknown,  unnoticed,  unremembered. 

These  illustrious  men  when  they  appear  are,  as 
would  follow  from  what  I  have  been  saying,  of 
more  than  merely  exceptional,  phenomenal  value. 
In  their  illumination  the  whole  great  mass  of 
humanity  finds  its  illustration  and  understands 
itself  This  is  true  in  the  most  general  aspect  of 
them.  And  when  we  come  to  look  at  them  in 
their  more  personal  characteristics,  each  of  them 
becomes  the  representative  of  some  smaller  group 
of  humankind,  to  which  he  almost  gives  his  name. 


xil]  GAMALIEL.  245 

Other  men  recognise  themselves  in  these  illumi- 
nated exhibitions  of  their  qualities.  They  under- 
stand themselves  better,  and  they  are  able  better 
to  declare  the  meaning  of  their  lives  to  the  world 
in  the  light  of  these  their  representatives. 

There  is  always  something  interesting  in  seeing 
men  thus  realise  themselves  in  the  sight  of  the 
representative  historic  expressions  of  their  char- 
acters. Often,  indeed,  it  is  only  a  degenerate 
caricature  of  the  higher  nature  which  they  present. 
The  dogmatist  names  himself  by  the  great  name 
of  St.  Paul,  and  thinks  that  his  narrow  dogmatism 
is  of  the  same  sort  with  the  apostle's  large- 
vninded  faith.  The  feeble  sentimentalist  counts 
himself  the  twin-brother  of  St.  John.  The  dainty 
sceptic,  dabbling  in  unbelief,  takes  the  name  of 
earnest,  puzzled,  simple -souled  St.  Thomas  to 
himself.  But,  after  all,  there  is  a  constant  tend- 
ency in  their  association  with  the  highest  types  of 
their  several  natures  and  tendencies  to  draw  them 
upward  and  to  make  each  of  them  a  more  worthy 
expression  of  his  characteristic  qualities  than  he 
could  be  if  he  knew  it  only  in  himself.  In  this 
truth  lies  one  of  the  greatest  advantages  of  the 
study  of  the  representative  men  of  human  history. 

I  ask  you  to  turn  with  me  this  morning  to  the 
story  of  a  man  whose  name  flashes  for  a  moment 
as  the  light  of  the  New  Testament  history  falls 


246  GAMALIEL  [xiL 


upon  the  life  of  Jerusalem  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  Church.  The  flash  is  only  for  a  moment, 
and  yet  the  impression  which  it  leaves  is  very 
clear.  Gamaliel  is  peculiarly  a  representative  man, 
and  the  nature  which  he  represents  is  one  which 
appeals  peculiarly  to  our  modern  life. 

Let  us  recall  his  history.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  famous  teachers  of  the  Jewish  law  at 
Jerusalem  in  the  days  of  Christ  and  in  the  years 
which  immediately  followed  Christ's  departure. 
It  is  not  only  from  the  New  Testament  that 
we  know  about  him  ;  all  of  the  Jewish  history 
of  those  days  declares  that  he  was  one  of  the 
ablest  and  most  famous  of  the  learned  men  of 
the  nation.  He  was  the  grandson  of  the  great 
scholar  and  teacher  Hillel,  and  he  belonged  dis- 
tinctly to  the  same  liberal  school  as  his  great 
ancestor.  In  those  days  there  were  two  schools 
or  parties  among  the  orthodox  religious  Jews — 
the  school  of  Shammai,  which  was  strict  and  narrow; 
and  the  school  of  Hillel,  which  was  liberal  and 
free.  Gamaliel  was  of  the  school  of  Hillel  ;  he 
was  a  liberal  Pharisee  ;  he  was  of  the  same  kind 
of  men  with  Nicodemus  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea, 
who  appear  in  the  gospels  as  both  Pharisees  and 
Liberals.  Gamaliel  was  one  of  the  few  rabbis 
who  allowed  their  students  the  study  of  the 
literature  of  the  Greeks.      He  taught  that  soldiers 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  247 

in  war-time,  and  all  persons  engaged  in  works  of 
mercy,  duty,  or  necessity,  should  be  exempt  from 
the  more  stringent  sabbatical  traditions  ;  he  bade 
his  disciples  greet  even  the  pagans  on  their 
feast-days  with  the  "  Peace  be  with  you."  In 
ways  like  these  he  showed  the  largeness  of  his 
spirit,  and  the  people  loved  him.  He  was  one  of 
the  seven  among  the  Jewish  doctors  who  alone 
have  been  honoured  with  the  supreme  title  of 
Rabban.  He  lived  to  a  good  old  age,  and  died 
about  sixty  years  after  the  birth  of  Christ. 

In  the  New  Testament,  Gamaliel  appears 
twice,  and  both  times  in  the  most  interesting  way. 
First,  he  is  the  teacher  of  St.  Paul,  and  so  we  are 
constantly  led  to  speculate  as  to  what  part  of  the 
training  of  his  great  pupil's  character  is  due  to 
him  ;  and  in  the  second  place,  when  the  apostles 
were  arrested  very  soon  after  the  Pentecost  for 
preaching  Christ  in  Jerusalem,  Gamaliel,  a  member 
of  the  Sanhedrim,  before  which  they  were  brought 
for  trial,  uttered  a  memorable  plea  for  toleration 
and  delay  of  judgment.  His  words  on  that  occasion 
are  among  the  classic  words  of  fairness  and  candour. 
He  bids  the  hot-headed  Jewish  counsellors  beware  ; 
he  reminds  them  of  how  agitators  before  this 
have  risen  and  soon  come  to  nothing.  "  And  now," 
he  goes  on,  "  I  say  unto  you,  refrain  from  these 
men,  and   let   them  alone  :  for  if  this  counsel  or 


248  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

this  work  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to  nought :  but 
if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow  it ;  lest  haply 
ye  be  found  even  to  ficjht  against  God."  And 
his  words  had  their  effect,  and  the  disciples  were 
released. 

In  the  light  of  all  these  facts  about  him,  and 
especially  in  view  of  these  last-quoted  words  of 
his,  it  is  not  hard  to  see  what  sort  of  man  Gamaliel 
was.  He  was,  in  the  first  place,  both  a  great 
teacher  and  also  a  great  preacher  of  toleration. 
These  two  qualities  unite  in  him  as  the  book  of 
Acts  shows  him  to  us.  And  they  are  two  qualities 
which  ought  always  to  unite.  Every  great  teacher, 
every  great  scholar,  ought  to  be  aware  of  the 
mystery  and  of  the  mightiness  of  truth,  and  there- 
fore he  ought  to  be  prepared  to  see  truth  linger  and 
hesitate  and  seem  to  be  retarded,  and  even  seem  to 
be  turned  back,  and  yet  to  keep  a  clear  assurance 
that  truth  must  come  right  in  the  end,  and  that 
the  only  way  to  help  her  is  to  keep  her  free,  so 
that  she  shall  be  at  liberty  to  help  herself.  There 
is  something  in  Gamaliel  which  always  reminds 
one  of  Milton,  the  great  scholar  and  the  great 
champion  of  toleration  of  the  Puritan  days, 
Gamaliel  seems  to  feel  what  Milton  feels  so 
strongly,  that  any  attempt  to  help  truth  save  by 
securing  her  liberty  is  impertinent  ;  that  all  at- 
tempts to  make  truth  strong  either  by  disarming 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  249 

her  enemies  or  by  choosing  for  her  what  weapons 
she  shall  fight  her  battles  with,  is  not  a  homage  to 
her  strength,  but  an  insulting  insinuation  of  her 
weakness.  The  scholar  of  truth  must  trust  truth  ; 
that  is  Gamaliel's  ground.  The  man  of  mere 
affairs  may  be  a  bigot,  but  not  the  scholar  ;  the 
student  must  claim  for  himself  and  for  all  men, 
lib'.-rty. 

How  true  this  is.  You  may  insist  if  you  will 
that  you  have  found  not  merely  the  best  but  the 
only  true  way  of  conducting  business  or  of  manag- 
ing the  affairs  of  State.  You  may,  if  you  have 
the  power,  compel  the  business  of  the  market  or 
the  government  of  the  country  to  be  conducted 
in  your  special  way.  Sometimes,  and  to  some 
extent  always,  such  arbitrary  selection  of  methods 
is  necessary  in  practical  affairs.  And  the  vital 
forces  of  commerce  and  the  State  will  work  on, 
even  if  they  do  not  work  at  their  best,  under 
whatever  special  form  you  may  have  chosen.  But 
if  you  limit  the  search  after  truth,  and  forbid  men 
anywhere,  in  any  way,  to  seek  knowledge,  you 
paralyse  the  vital  force  of  truth  itself.  He  who 
is  seeking  anywhere  for  truth  loses  the  true  spirit 
of  his  search  if  he  forbids  any  other  man  to  seek 
for  truth  anywhere  else.  That  is  what  makes 
bigotry  so  disastrous  to  the  bigot. 

Gamaliel,  then,  is  the  man  of  wise  and  generous 


2S0  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

toleration.  And  this  character,  as  I  have  sai'd, 
has  close  connection  with  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
teacher,  the  teacher  of  St.  Paul.  The  world  will 
always  be  most  interested  in  him  as  the  teacher 
of  the  greatest  teacher,  after  Christ,  of  Christen- 
dom. In  the  picture  of  Christian  history  this 
Hebrew  teacher  finds  a  place,  mainly  because  the 
future  teacher  of  Christendom  is  sitting  at  his  feet. 
He  is,  then,  the  broad-minded  teacher,  the  man 
who  earnestly  inculcates  his  own  views  of  truth, 
and  at  the  same  time  knows  and  freely  owns  that 
truth  is  larger  than  his  view.  Such  a  teacher  as 
that — such  a  man  as  that  giving  his  life  to  teach- 
ing always  has  a  special  interest  He  is  one  of 
those  men  who  give  other  men  the  chance  to 
make  history  rather  than  make  it  themselves. 
They  themselves  are  almost  of  necessity  relegated 
to  obscurity.  The  very  splendour  of  the  career 
of  their  pupils,  of  which  they  are  the  creating 
cause,  makes  it  impossible  for  the  world  to  see 
them  ;  as  the  flash  of  fire  from  the  gun's  mouth, 
and  the  rush  of  the  burning  shell  on  its  tre- 
mendous way,  makes  it  impossible  to  see  the  gun 
itself  in  whose  deep  heart  the  power  of  the  ex- 
plosion was  conceived  and  born.  It  is  evident 
that  in  this  thought  there  lies  a  satisfaction  which 
has  been  quite  sufficient  for  many  a  noble  mind. 
Many  a  great  teacher  has  been  perfectly  satisfied 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  251 

with  teachership,  perfectly  content  to  furnish  the 
materials  and  conditions  of  effective  and  con- 
spicuous activity  to  other  minds,  and  to  rest  him- 
self in  obscurity  as  they  went  forth  to  prominence. 
We  can  picture  to  ourselves  Gamaliel  watching 
Paul.  Sometimes  approvingly,  sometimes  con- 
demningly,  we  can  think  of  the  calm  large-minded 
teacher  following  the  career  of  his  fiery-hearted 
scholar,  and,  however  he  disagreed  with  what  he 
thought  his  delusions,  rejoicing  in  his  faithfulness 
and  force.  Always  the  teacher  thus  watching  the 
pupil,  who  carries  forth  his  teaching  in  new  ways, 
is  a  most  interesting  sight,  not  without  pathos. 

And,  if  we  look  the  other  way,  there  are  few 
things  finer  than  to  see  the  reverence  and  grati- 
tude with  which  the  best  men  of  active  life  look 
back  to  the  quiet  teachers  who  furnished  them 
with  the  materials  of  living.  One  of  the  most 
interesting  things  about  many  of  our  greatest 
statesmen  has  been  their  love  and  honour  for 
their  schoolmasters  and  college  tutors.  Even 
from  the  midst  of  his  missionary  journeys,  even 
from  his  prison  in  Rome,  we  are  able  to  believe 
that  St.  Paul  looked  back  to  the  lessons  of  faith- 
fulness and  generosity  which  he  had  learned  of 
the  great  teacher  of  his  youth,  and  could  see  them 
still,  though  with  a  lustre  grown  faint  and  pale, 
even    through   the  great   light   which  had   shone 


252  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

around  him  by  Damascus,  and  the  glory  of  the 
vision  of  the  third  heaven. 

There  are  some  of  us  whose  work  in  Hfe  seems 
to  assume  mainly  this  character.  Parents,  teachers, 
quiet  helpers  of  other  lives,  it  seems  as  if  we  were 
rather  providing  other  souls  with  the  conditions  of 
living  than  living  ourselves.  Indeed  there  are 
none  of  us  whose  lives  in  some  of  their  aspects  do 
not  assume  that  look.  It  is  good  to  know  that  he 
who  makes  nobler  life  possible  by  any  conscious 
work  of  his  for  other  people,  therein  lives  nobly 
himself,  not  merely  in  their  lives  but  in  his  own. 
Let  us  always  remember  that  the  perfect  life  was 
content  as  one  of  its  highest  titles  to  be  called  a 
teacher's  life.  In  the  apparent  stationariness  of 
much  of  our  experience,  seeing  life  flow  by  us,  as 
the  river  flows  by  the  tree,  it  is  good  to  live  thus 
by  the  life  to  which  we  try  to  minister,  as  the  tree 
lives  by  the  river  whose  waters  it  at  the  same 
time  does  something  to  colour  and  to  direct. 

But  there  is  a  larger  view  of  Gamaliel  than 
this.  He  has  his  relation  not  merely  to  St.  Paul, 
but  to  the  whole  opening  history  of  Christianity. 
I  have  quoted  his  words  at  the  Sanhedrim  when 
the  apostles  were  on  trial  :  "  If  this  counsel  or 
this  work  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to  nought :  but 
if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrov.  it ; "  there- 
fore, "  refrain  from  these  men.  and  let  them  alone." 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  253 

There  are  some  men  whose  whole  influence  is  to 
keep  history  open,  so  that  whatever  good  thing  is 
trying  to  get  done  in  the  world  can  get  done  ; 
not  the  doers  of  great  things,  but  the  men  who 
help  to  keep  the  world  so  truly  poised  that  good 
forces  shall  have  a  chance  to  work.  These  words 
of  Gamaliel  seem  to  point  him  out  as  being  such 
a  man.  There  are  men  who  seem  to  shut  up  a 
community,  so  that,  as  far  as  their  influence  ex- 
tends, if  a  new  thought  were  waiting  to  be  spoken 
or  a  new  deed  all  ready  to  be  done,  it  would  be 
thrown  back  and  made  hopeless.  Was  not  this 
exactly  what  Jesus  charged  upon  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees :  "  Ye  shut  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
against  men.  Ye  neither  go  in  yourselves  ;  neither 
suffer  ye  them  that  are  entering  to  go  in  "  ?  It 
was  not  their  special  persecutions  of  enterpris- 
ing and  original  people,  not  their  special  opposi- 
tion to  His  immediate  teaching,  of  which  He  was 
speaking  then  ;  it  was  rather  the  effect  which  all 
their  life  and  spirit  had  upon  the  world.  They 
made  great  deeds,  fresh  thoughts,  enthusiastic 
consecration  to  first  principles  appear  impossible. 
There  is  a  still  stronger  instance  of  the  same 
blighting  power  in  what  St.  Mark  says  of  the 
possibility  of  Jesus  working  His  miracles  in  His 
own  country :  He  "  could  there  do  no  mighty 
work,  because  of  the  people's  unbelief."     It  was 


254  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

possible  for  men  so  to  shut  up  a  whole  district 
of  the  land  that  even  Christ's  marvellous  power 
could  not  do  its  work  there.  And  this  is  some- 
thing which  we  can  surely  understand.  In  our 
own  little  circles  are  there  not  men  so  distrustful 
of  the  higher  impulses,  men  in  the  largest  and 
deepest  sense  so  unbelieving  and  so  scornful,  that 
we  see  the  young  people,  the  earnest  people,  the 
fresh  enthusiastic  people,  shut  up  their  lives  before 
them  as  the  flowers  shut  up  at  night  ;  and  there 
is  no  hope  for  any  great  thing  to  be  done  or 
thought  while  they  are  there.  I  do  not  mean 
the  sober,  thoughtful,  accurate,  critical  men  and 
women  who  insist  on  submitting  every  impulsive 
thought  and  plan  to  a  careful  examination.  They 
are  not  the  murderers  of  enthusiasm  ;  they  kill 
no  impulse  except  the  silliest  and  most  super- 
ficial. They  are  like  the  healthy  frost,  which  kills 
the  gnats  and  mosquitoes,  but  makes  every  higher 
being  live  with  a  fuller  life.  The  men  I  speak  of 
are  men  who  are  set  upon  making  all  the  world 
live  in  their  way,  and  who  have  no  real  faith  in 
God,  and  therefore  no  real  faith  in  man.  Human 
force  and  goodness  seem  to  them  to  be  not  vital 
growths  with  real  life  in  them,  but  skilfully- 
arranged  devices  all  artificially  planned  and 
pinned  together,  where  if  you  altered  the  place 
of  any  single  pin  the  whole  must  fall.      Such  men 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  255 

must  blight  the  possibilities  of  any  community 
they  live  in.  But  there  are  other  men  who,  not 
doing  themselves  perhaps  great  deeds,  seem  to 
make  great  deeds,  or  at  least  to  make  great  life, 
possible.  Such  men  in  our  community,  in  our 
family  circles,  in  our  own  little  groups,  whatever 
they  are,  any  of  us  may  be — men  who  shall  do 
something  to  hold  the  soul  of  our  little  group  in 
such  expectancy  and  readiness,  in  such  unwilling- 
ness to  settle  down  upon  the  imperfect  present  as 
a  finality,  that  when  the  inspired  word  or  deed 
shall  come,  as  it  is  sure  to  come  some  time,  it 
shall  find  the  atmosphere  ready  to  receive  it  and 
transmit  it.  We  cannot  make  the  wind  to  blow, 
— it  bloweth  where  it  listeth  ;  but  we  can  keep  the 
windows  open,  so  that  when  it  blows  the  cham- 
bered life  about  us  shall  not  fail  to  receive  its 
freshness. 

If  I  am  right  in  thinking  that  Gamaliel  was  a 
good  type  of  this  kind  of  man  who  keeps  the 
world  open  for  what  God  has  to  give  to  it,  then 
it  will  certainly  be  well  for  us  to  study  him  more 
closely,  and  especially  to  look  at  this  typical 
speech  of  his  to  see  what  we  can  of  where  this 
kind  of  power  lies.  I  must  quote  it  to  you  once 
again.  "  If  this  counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men, 
it  will  come  to  nought,"  he  said  ;  "  but  if  it  be  of 
God,  ye  cannot  overthrow  it"     The  first  thing  that 


ZS6  GAMALIEL.  [xil 

is  evident  about  that  speech  is  that  the  man  vho 
makes  it  believes  in  God ;  not  a  mere  faith 
about  God  ;  he  believes  in  God.  To  him  evi- 
dently surrounding  all  that  man  does — behind  *t 
and  before  it  and  working  through  it — there  is 
God.  And  with  God  are  the  final  issues  and 
destinies  of  things.  Work  as  man  will,  he  cannot 
make  a  plan  succeed  which  God  disowns  ;  work 
as  man  will,  he  cannot  make  a  plan  fail  which 
God  approves.  That  is  a  noble  and  distinct  faith. 
It  is  stepping  across  the  line  between  fear  and 
courage,  between  restlessness  and  peace,  between 
intolerance  and  charity,  when  a  man  thoroughly, 
heartily,  enthusiastically  enters  into  that  faith, 
when  he  comes  to  really  believe  that  with  all  his 
heart  and  soul.  These  words  of  Gamaliel  are  the 
words  of  all  really  progressive  spirits.  They  were 
the  words  of  Martin  Luther,  who  opened  Europe 
and  made  the  best  of  modern  history  a  possibility 
Fitly  do  they  stand  to-day  carved  upon  the  pedestal 
of  his  great  statue  at  Wittenberg. 

And  yet  we  want  to  know  what  it  is  to  believe 
in  God  and  to  trust  Him  for  the  great  results  of 
things.  It  is  not  to  rest  in  idleness.  Luther 
worked  ;  Gamaliel  worked.  Nobody  can  doubt 
that  Gamaliel  went  back  from  the  Sanhedrim 
meeting  to  teach  with  all  his  might  that  Christi- 
anity was  wrong.      He  had  his  thoughts,  and  he 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  257 

upheld  them.  He  said, "  This  is  the  truth  ;"  only,  as 
he  said  that,  he  must  have  said  also  to  his  scholars 
— ^young  Saul  of  Tarsus  sitting  there  among  them 
— "There  are  some  men  here  in  Jerusalem  — 
earnest,  brave,  enthusiastic,  wofully  deluded,  as  I 
think — who  are  asserting  that  not  this  which  I 
tell  you  about  the  Messias,  but  something  else 
quite  the  opposite  is  true.  They  are  asserting  that 
the  Christ  has  come,  and  that  His  reign  has  begun. 
I  think  these  men  are  wrong.  I  give  you  my 
reasons.  By  and  by  you  will  see  their  fanaticism 
wither  and  dry  up  because  no  life  of  God  is  in  it. 
But  now  let  them  alone.  Believe  your  truth,  assert 
it,  prove  it,  live  it :  so  will  you  do  your  best  to  kill 
this  folly."  That  was  Gamaliel.  That  is  the^true 
spirit  always.  To  hold  your  truth,  to  believe  it 
with  all  your  heart,  to  work  with  all  your  might 
first  to  make  it  real  to  yourself  and  then  to  show 
its  preciousness  to  other  men,  and  then — not  till 
then,  but  then — to  leave  the  questions  of  when 
and  how  and  by  whom  it  shall  prevail,  to  God  ; 
that  is  the  true  life  of  the  true  believer.  There  is 
no  feeble  unconcern  and  indiscriminateness  there, 
and  neither  is  there  any  excited  hatred  of  the 
creed,  the  doctrine,  or  the  Church  which  you  think 
wholly  wrong.  You  have  not  fled  out  of  the  fur- 
nace of  bigotry  only  to  freeze  on  the  open  and 
desolate  plains  of  ir  JifTerence.     You  believe,  and 

S 


258  GAMALIEL.  [xii. 

yet  you  have  no  wish  to  persecute  ;  and  any  reader 
of  the  history  of  faith — nay,  any  student  of  his 
own  soul — knows  how  rarely  these  two  conditions 
have  met  in  perfect  harmony. 

When  I  say  that  word  "  persecute,"  I  dare  say 
that  I  suggest  the  question  which  has  been  all  the 
time  upon  some  of  your  minds.  Persecution 
sounds  like  a  bygone  word — a  word  of  Gamaliel's 
time  but  not  of  ours.  And  no  doubt  in  its  worst 
forms  in  the  best  parts  of  the  earth  persecution  has 
quite  passed  away.  The  stake  and  the  scaffold 
for  opinion's  sake  have  disappeared  in  all  enlight- 
ened lands.  And  yet  all  persecution  did  not  pass 
away  with  them.  There  are  far  keener  ways  in 
which  man  may  inflict  pain  on  his  fellow-man  than 
by  the  axe  or  halter.  Social  disgrace  and  ostra- 
cism for  the  sake  of  one's  belief  come  in  to  take  the 
place  of  the  more  crude  and  violent  punishments 
of  other  days.  It  may  be  said,  perhaps,  that  these 
too  are  gone  ;  and  in  great  part  they  are.  No  man 
to-day  with  any  sort  of  manly  earnestness  about 
his  creed  could  mind,  it  would  seem,  for  a  moment 
the  petty  indications  of  dislike  and  unpopularity 
which  his  creed  might  incur.  The  form  in  which 
persecution  lingers  still  is  one  yet  more  subtle. 
It  is  in  the  disposition  to  attach  disastrous  con- 
sequences in  this  world  or  the  next  to  honest 
opinions   which    we    hold    to    be    mistaken ;    the 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  259 

desire  to  fasten  upon  intellectual  convictions  thoie 
stigmas  of  wickedness  which  can  belong  only  to 
personal  character,  to  call  a  man  a  bad  man,  and 
to  make  him,  if  we  can,  tremble  at  some  future 
which  we  vaguely  hold  before  him,  who — ^just  as 
honest  and  as  faithful  in  the  search  for  truth  as 
we  are — has  seen  truth  differently  from  the  way 
in  which  it  has  appeared  to  us.  When  that  last 
form  of  terrorism  shall  have  passed  away — when 
we  shall  frankly  own  that  there  is  nothing  for 
which  God  in  any  world  will  punish  any  of  His 
children  except  sin  —  then  persecution  will  have 
finally  perished.  That  day  will  come,  partly  by 
the  advancement  of  man's  own  standards,  by  his 
willing  acceptance  of  the  better  way,  but  partly 
also  by  the  acceptance  of  a  more  and  more  clearly 
perceived  necessity.  Man  will  cease  persecuting 
his  brother  man,  partly  because  he  will  outgrow 
the  wish  to  persecute,  but  partly  also  because  he 
will  see  how  useless  it  is  to  persecute  ;  always  our 
necessities  come  thus  to  reinforce  our  feeble  sense 
of  duty.  We  shall  come  in  the  end  to  welcome  all 
the  honest  and  earnest  thought  of  men,  partly  be- 
cause we  see  the  good  of  it,  however  it  differs  from 
our  own,  and  partly  because  we  cannot  help  our- 
selves. In  history  it  is  by  the  combined  forces  of 
these  two  causes  that  every  great  progress  of 
human  thought  has  taken  place. 


26o  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

And  when  all  persecution  goes,  when  the  last 
effort  to  enforce  opinion  by  any  form  of  terror 
disappears,  no  doubt  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  the 
blessings  which  its  departure  brings  will  be  that 
there  will  come  a  chance  and  a  demand  for  the 
two  forms  of  human  influence  which  will  then  have 
all  the  work  to  do.  The  greatest  blessing  of 
getting  rid  of  the  weeds  is  that  the  flowers  can 
grow.  Reason  and  life,  these  are  the  real  forces 
which  man  always  has  a  right  to  use  to  impress 
his  belief  upon  his  fellow-man.  When  you  have 
thoroughly  learned  and  thoroughly  believed  that 
it  is  both  wrong  and  useless  to  try  to  frighten 
your  fellow-man  out  of  his  faith  into  yours,  then 
what  remains  ?  First,  you  may  argue  with  him, 
tell  him  why  you  believe,  show  him  how  unreason- 
able his  unbelief  or  his  fanaticism  is.  That  is 
legitimate,  and  it  is  good  for  any  man  or  any 
creed  when  it  is  driven  out  of  the  dark  ways  of 
persecution  and  made  to  stand  up  fairly  in  the 
light  and  face  the  adversary  in  fair  battle.  And 
if  you  cannot  argue,  if  your  grounds  for  your  belief, 
true  as  you  know  they  are,  are  such  as  you  cannot 
put  forth  in  convincing  words,  or  if  the  friend 
whom  you  want  to  convince  is  one  to  whose  mind 
stated  arguments  bring  no  conviction,  then  there 
is  only  one  thing  left — you  must  live  your  faith. 
Oh,  how  often  we  have  seen  it !     A  true  souJ  can* 


XII.]  GAMALIEL.  2G1 

not,  and  will  not,  force  its  faith  upon  another 
soul  It  hates,  and  it  despairs  of  persecution. 
And  it  says  (how  often  we  have  heard  it !),  "I 
cannot  argue.  I  always  make  the  better  reason 
seem  the  worst,  and  dishonour  the  cause  for  which 
I  plead.  Am  I  not  helpless  ! "  And  then  just 
going  on,  hopeless  of  influencing  others,  just  trying 
to  live  out  its  own  life,  to  turn  its  own  assured 
belief  into  obedient  action,  gradually  other  people 
have  become  aware,  even  if  it  has  never  discovered 
the  fact  itself,  that  this  true  soul  was  bearing  a 
witness  to  truth  which  must  have  power.  Not 
all  men  are  capable  of  arguing  or  of  receiving 
argument  ;  but  all  men  are  capable  of  living  and 
of  appreciating  life.  In  a  live  State  the  soldiers 
have  their  useful  duty,  but  it  is  not  the  fighting 
soldiers  who  make  the  State's  true  strength  or 
are  its  real  defenders.  Its  faithful  citizens,  living 
their  industrious  lives  within  its  institutions,  which 
their  lives  are  always  filling  with  life,  they  are  the 
true  defenders  of  the  State,  making  it  strong,  and 
making  its  strength  impressively  manifest  to  all 
the  world.  So  the  great  faith  needs  learned 
reasoners  ;  it  cannot  do  without  them.  But  it 
needs  obedient  servants  and  disciples  more.  And 
he  who  cannot  argue,  and  will  not  persecute,  may 
still  know  that  his  life  is  not  useless  for  his  faith. 
He  may  just  live  faithfully  and  leave  the  whole 


262  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

result  to  God,  whose   the  faith  really  is  if  it  is 
true. 

And  that  brings  us  back  once  more  to 
Gamaliel.  Was  he,  then,  right  ?  Could  he  then, 
can  a  man  to-day,  leave  all  to  God  and  be  quietly 
sure  that  He  will  vindicate  the  truth  ?  A  thousand 
fluctuations  in  the  varying  battle  make  us  doubt. 
Many  and  many  a  time  it  seems  as  if  between  the 
error  and  the  truth  it  were  merely  a  question  of 
which  had  the  cleverest  men  upon  its  side.  And 
yet  we  know  that,  if  there  be  a  God  at  all, 
Gamaliel  was  right.  There  cannot  be  a  God,  and 
yet  that  which  is  of  Him  have  no  stronger  assur- 
ance than  that  which  is  of  man  and  of  the  earth. 
There  must  be  time,  there  must  be  patience  ;  but 
the  real  final  question  of  two  trees  is  the  question 
of  their  roots.  That  which  is  rooted  in  God  must 
live.  There  is  no  hope  or  peace  anywhere  in  the 
world  if  this  is  not  true.  Who  cares  which  way  the 
fickle  wind  is  blowing  at  this  minute  if  there  be  no 
purpose  which  stands  behind  and  governs  it,  no 
One  who  holds  the  winds  in  his  hands  ?  But  if 
there  be,  who  will  not  labour  bravely,  trying  to 
put  himself  into  the  current  of  the  great  purpose 
of  the  world  ;  begging  to  be  defeated  if  he  mis- 
takes the  great  purpose  and  is  helping  evil  when 
he  thinks  that  he  is  helping  good  ;  ready  to  wait 
and  work  through  all  delays  ;  with  infinite  patience 


XILJ  GAMALIEL.  263 

ready  to  see  men  blundering  and  going  wrong  ; 
ready  to  help  them  if  he  can, — sure  of  one  thing 
and  only  one,  that  in  the  end,  through  every  hin- 
drance and  delay,  God  must  do  right  ? 

The  final  glory  of  Gamaliel  lies  there.  He 
believed  that  God  was  the  only  life  of  this  world, 
that  all  which  did  not  live  in  Him  must  die.  We 
do  not  know  whether  Gamaliel  ever  became  a 
Christian  before  he  died,  whether,  in  this  life,  he 
ever  saw  that  the  true  light  which  these  poor 
prisoners  adored  was  true  and  gave  himself  to 
Christ.  The  legends  say  that  he  did.  History 
seems  to  say  that  he  did  not.  But  at  least  we 
know  that  if  we  have  rightly  read  his  character 
and  story,  he  made  the  Christian  faith  more  pos- 
sible for  other  men,  and  he  must  somewhere, 
sometime — if  not  here,  then  beyond — have  come  to 
the  truth  and  to  the  Christ  Himself.  I  wish  that 
I  could  speak  to  the  Gamaliels  here  to-day,  men 
not  Christians,  but  men  who  are  earnest,  thought- 
ful, tolerant,  and  sure  of  God,  pure  and  sincere, 
and  ready  for  the  light  which  God  shall  show 
them.  Be  sure,  so  I  would  say  to  them,  be  sure 
that  no  man  in  this  world  can  be  earnest  and  sure 
of  God  without  helping  the  world  to  faith,  often 
to  a  faith  clearer  than  his  own,  or  without  going 
on  himself  to  a  completer  and  completer  faith,  and 
certainly  at  last  somewhere  coming  to  the  perfec? 


264  GAMALIEL.  [xiL 

faith  himself.  Therefore  be  earnest  and  keep 
sure  of  God  !  Be  earnest  and  keep  sure  of  God  ! 
We  who  believe  in  Christ  dare  to  be  confident 
and  say  that  we  know  that  to  every  such  soul 
the  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life  must  show  Himself 
at  last  I 


XIIL 

THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.* 

••  For  with  what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  tc  you 
again." — Matthew  viL  2. 

The  New  Testament  is  full  of  the  idea  of  a 
natural  and  necessary  reciprocity  between  man 
and  the  things  by  which  he  is  surrounded. 
"  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also 
reap,"  writes  St.  Paul  to  the  Galatians.  "  He 
that  soweth  sparingly  shall  reap  also  sparingly, 
and  he  that  soweth  bountifully  shall  reap  also 
bountifully."  The  world  seems  to  be  a  great  field 
in  which  every  man  drops  his  seed,  and  which 
gives  back  to  every  man,  not  just  the  same  thing 
which  he  dropped  there,  any  more  than  the  brown 
earth  holds  up  to  you  in  the  autumn  the  same 
black  berry  which  you  hid  under  its  bosom  in  the 
spring,  but  something  which  has  its  true  corre- 
spondence and  proportion  to  the  seed  to  which  it 

*  Preached  in  St.  Margaret's  Church,  Westminster,  Sunday  eveD- 
tog,  8th  July  1883. 


266  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xiil 

is  the  legitimate  and  natural  reply.  Every  gift 
has  its  return,  every  act  has  its  consequence,  eveiy 
call  has  its  answer  in  this  great  live,  alert  world, 
where  man  stands  central,  and  all  things  have 
their  eyes  on  Him  and  their  ears  open  to  His 
voice. 

And  I  think  that  what  impresses  a  thoughtful 
reader  of  the  New  Testament  most  is  t?ie  way  in 
which  this  fact  of  the  reciprocity  between  man 
and  his  surroundings  is  the  very  element  in  which 
all  life  goes  on.  It  is  not  something  artificially 
arranged  ;  it  is  inherent  in  the  very  natures  of 
man  and  of  the  world.  They  could  not  be  what 
they  are  and  this  fact  not  be  true.  True,  it  is 
constantly  spoken  of  as  the  issue  and  result  of  the 
will  of  God.  The  New  Testament  is  personal 
always,  and  it  is  personal  here.  What  the  world 
gives  us  in  answer  to  what  we  give  to  it  is  con- 
stantly spoken  of  as  given  to  us  by  God.  "  Ask 
and  you  shall  have ;"  "  Seek  and  you  shall  find," 
says  Jesus.  "  Forgive  and  you  shall  be  forgiven  ;" 
"Judge  not  and  you  shall  not  be  judged  ;"  "  Give 
and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you  ;"  "  He  that  con- 
fesseth  Me  before  men,  him  will  I  also  confess." 
Here  it  is  the  will  of  an  observant  God  that  sends 
the  answer  to  the  thing  we  do.  But  God,  in  the 
New  Testament  idea  of  Him,  is  not  merely  the 
arranger  of  certain  correspondences,  the  adjuster  o/ 


XIII.]  TUB  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  267 

rewards  and  punishments  ;  He  is  the  spiritual 
element  in  the  embrace  of  which  all  our  life  and 
all  our  relationships  are  born  and  work.  As  a 
man  grows  in  the  sunshine,  as  two  men  meet  and 
look  into  each  other's  eyes  and  catch  one  another's 
sympathy,  and  share  one  another's  life  in  the  midst 
of  warm,  soft,  vital  ether,  which  at  once  supplies 
the  vitality  of  both  of  them,  and  also  carries  the 
trembling  sound  of  their  voices  and  the  living 
pictures  of  their  faces  to  each  other's  ears  and  eyes ; 
so  we  develop  our  own  life  and  relate  our  own  life 
to  other  lives  within  God,  if  we  may  say  so.  And 
why  should  we  not  say  so  when  it  is  just  what  Paul 
said  to  the  Athenians,  as  he  declared  upon  Mars' 
Hill,  "  In  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being"?  Therefore  it  is  that  what  the  world 
returns  to  any  man  in  answer  to  the  force  which 
he  lays  out  upon  it,  comes  to  him  in  God,  comes 
to  him  from  God,  and  may  truly  be  taken  as  God's 
encouragement  or  God's  warning.  God's  will  is 
not  something  separable  from  the  essential  and 
necessary  working  of  the  fundamental  laws  of 
the  world  ;  it  is  the  element  in  which  those  laws 
work,  and  which  decrees  their  character.  Let  us 
understand  this  fully,  and  then  we  shall  not  be 
confused  to-night  as  we  speak  of  the  necessary 
replies  which  a  man's  surroundings  always  make 
to  what  he  is  and  does  ;  we  shall  be  able  freely  to 


268  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xili. 

hear  in  those  replies  at  once  the  working  of  an 
essential  law,  and  at  the  same  time  the  utterances 
of  the  will  of  God. 

The  necessary  replies  which  a  man's  surround- 
ings make  to  what  he  is  and  does, — this  is  our 
subject  for  this  evening.  "  With  what  measure 
ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again."  It  is 
a  law  of  vast  extent  and  wonderful  exactness.  The 
world  is  far  more  orderly  than  we  believe  ;  a  deeper 
and  a  truer  justice  runs  through  it  than  we  imagine. 
We  all  go  about  calling  ourselves  victims,  dis- 
coursing on  the  cruel  world,  and  wondering  that  it 
should  treat  us  so,  when  really  we  are  only  meet- 
ing the  rebound  of  our  own  lives.  What  we  have 
been  to  things  about  us  has  made  it  necessary 
that  they  should  be  this  to  us.  As  we  have  given 
ourselves  to  them,  so  they  have  given  themselves 
to  us.  This  is  the  law  I  want  to  trace  with  you, 
only  begging  you  again  to  keep  your  minds,  as  I 
speak,  clear  of  any  materialism  which  would  think 
that  in  mere  earth  itself  resides  this  power  of  just 
and  discriminating  reply.  It  is  as  we  and  all 
things  exist  together  in  the  great  embracing  and 
pervading  element  of  God  that  all  things  give 
themselves  to  us  as  we  give  ourselves  to  them.  So 
all  the  phenomena  of  life  are  at  the  same  time 
divine  judgments  if  we  are  only  wise  enough  to 
read  them 


XIII.]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  269 

It  would  be  possible  to  trace  our  law  even  in 
physical  nature.  Newton's  great  generalisation, 
which  he  called  the  "  Third  Law  of  Motion,"  was, 
that  "  action  and  reaction  are  always  equal  to  each 
other  ;"  and  that  law  has  been  one  of  the  most 
pregnant  of  all  truths  about  the  mystery  of  force, 
one  of  the  brightest  windows  through  which  modern 
eyes  have  looked  into  the  world  of  nature.  It  has 
shown  the  whole  world  throbbing  with  the  respon- 
siveness of  part  to  part.  It  has  made  men  know 
that  no  force  could  work  without  another  force 
replying  to  it.  Every  pressure  involves  resistance, 
every  blow  is  answered  by  a  blow  in  return.  It 
fills  the  universe  with  life.  Nothing  is  passive  and 
nothing  is  uncaused  ;  life  and  causation  run  through 
the  lowest  and  the  highest  things.  The  trees  and 
the  plants  are  ready  to  reply  to  the  least  or  the 
mightiest  touch.  Still,  as  in  the  prophecy  of 
Habakkuk,  "  The  stone  cries  on  the  wall,  and  the 
beam  out  of  the  timber  answers  it."  Still,  as  in 
the  book  of  Job,  "  The  morning  stars  sing  to- 
gether," in  the  great  rhythm  of  action  and  reaction 
which  pervades  the  earth. 

But  it  is  of  man  and  his  reactions  that  I  want 
to  speak,  tracing  them  briefly  from  the  lowest 
region  to  the  highest.  Where  shall  we  begin? 
Even  with  man's  relations  to  the  material  earth 
the  law  is  true.     What  different  things  she  is  to 


270  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xilL 

all  of  US,  this  earth  we  live  in  !  Why  is  it  that 
one  man  laughs  at  another's  view  about  the  earth, 
and  thinks  him  mad  because  of  some  strange  valur 
that  he  places  on  it  ?  Three  men  stand  in  the 
same  field  and  look  around  them  ;  and  then  they 
all  cry  out  together.  One  of  them  exclaims,  How 
rich !  another  cries,  How  strange !  another  cries, 
How  beautiful !  and  then  the  three  divide  the  field 
between  them,  and  they  build  their  houses  there  ; 
and  in  a  year  you  come  back  and  see  what  answer 
the  same  earth  has  made  to  each  of  her  three 
questioners.  They  have  all  talked  with  the  ground 
on  which  they  lived,  and  heard  its  answers.  They 
have  all  held  out  their  several  hands,  and  the  same 
ground  has  put  its  own  gift  into  each  of  them. 
What  have  they  got  to  show  yon  ?  One  cries, 
"  Come  here  and  see  my  barn  ;"  another  cries, 
*'  Come  here  and  see  my  museum  ;"  the  other  says, 
"  Let  me  read  you  my  poem."  That  is  a  picture 
of  the  way  in  which  a  generation  or  the  race  takes 
the  great  earth  and  makes  it  different  things  to  all 
its  children.  With  what  measure  we  mete  to  it, 
it  measures  to  us  again.  This  is  the  rebound  of 
the  hard  earth — sensitive  and  soft,  although  we  call 
it  hard,  and  feeling  with  an  instant  keen  discrimi- 
nation the  different  touch  of  each  different  human 
nature  which  is  laid  upon  it.  Reaction  is  equal 
to  action.      Some  of  you  may  remember  how  our 


XIII.]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  2ji 

New  England  poets'  poet  sings  to  the  farmer  ovef 
whose  fields  he  has  been  wandering  : — 

••One  harvest  from  thy  field 

Homeward  brought  the  oxen  strong; 
A  second  crop  thine  acres  yield, 
Which  I  gather  in  a  song." 

This  is  what  makes  the  everlasting  interest  of 
nature  ;  her  capacity  of  endless  association  with 
man,  from  whom  all  real  interest  in  the  world 
must  radiate,  and  to  whom  it  always  must  return. 
As  Emerson  sings  again  of  those  whom  he  had 
loved,  and  who  made  the  landscape  in  the  midst 
of  which  he  had  loved  them  for  ever  dear : — 

**  They  took  this  valley  for  their  toy, 

They  played  with  it  in  every  mood  ; 
A  cell  for  prayer,  a  hall  for  joy, — 
They  treated  nature  as  they  would. 

**  They  coloured  the  horizon  round  ; 

Stars  flamed  and  faded  as  they  bade ; 
All  echoes  hearkened  for  their  sound, — 
They  made  the  woodlands  glad  or  mad." 

"  They  treated  nature  as  they  would."  So  all 
men,  all  races,  treat  nature  according  to  their  wills, 
whether  their  wills  be  the  deep  utterances  of  their 
characters  or  only  the  light  and  fickle  impulses  of 
self-indulgence.  And  what  they  are  to  nature, 
nature  is  to  them — to  one  man  the  siren,  who 


272  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xilL 

fascinates  him  to  drunkenness  and  death  ;  to 
another,  the  wise  friend,  who  teaches  him  all  les- 
sons of  self-restraint  and  sobriety  and  patient  hope 
and  work. 

But,  after  all,  our  relations  to  the  world  of 
nature  are  little  more  than  illustrations  of  our 
relations  to  the  world  of  men.  With  them  our 
true  relations  are  ;  and  so  let  us  pass  on  and  see 
how  true  the  law  which  we  are  looking  at  is  there 
I  think  that  all  of  us  come  to  feel  very  strongly, 
as  we  grow  older,  that  what  we  get  from  fellow- 
men  in  all  these  close  and  pressing  contacts  into 
which  life  brings  us  with  one  another  depends  not 
nearly  so  much  upon  what  the  men  are  whom  we 
touch,  as  upon  what  sort  of  men  we  are  who  touch 
them  ;  and  so,  as  we  grow  older,  we  ought  to  grow 
more  careless  about  where  we  live,  just  in  propor- 
tion as  we  become  careful  about  what  we  are. 
What  does  it  mean,  that  one  man  cannot  go  among 
any  kind  of  men,  however  base  and  low,  without 
getting  happiness  and  good  ;  while  another  man 
cannot  go  into  the  midst  of  the  noblest  and  sweet- 
est company  without  bringing  out  misery  and  de- 
spair and  sin  ?  I  think  there  grows  in  us  a  strong 
conviction  with  our  growing  years  that  for  a  man 
to  get  bad  out  of  the  world  of  fellow-men  is  not 
necessarily  a  disgrace  to  the  world  of  fellow-men, 
but  is  certainly  a  disgrace  to  him.    Here  are  Jesus 


Xin.]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  273 

and  Judas  :  both  go  and  give  themselves  to  the 
Pharisees  ;  both  stand  in  the  Pharisees'  presence 
and  hear  what  they  have  to  say.  To  Jesus  these 
Pharisees  give  back  in  return  every  day  a  deeper 
consciousness  of  His  own  wondrous  nature,  a  de- 
vouter  consecration  to  His  Father,  and  a  more 
earnest  pity  for  them.  To  Judas  they  give  only 
blacker  dreams  of  treason,  a  falser  disregard  of 
friendship  and  loyalty  and  honour.  Let  the  two 
tell  the  story  of  the  men  whom  they  have  been 
among — the  Pharisees,  whom  both  of  them  have 
touched.  Both  will  declare  the  sin  which  they 
have  felt ;  but  Jesus  will  declare  how  those  sinners 
have  helped  Him  to  Flimself,  and  given  Him  new 
chance  to  glorify  His  Father;  Judas,  with  bitter 
cowardice,  will  curse  them  for  his  ruin.  Unroll 
the  centuries  and  come  down  to  our  own  day. 
Take  two  boys  in  a  class  at  college  ;  two  clerks  in 
a  shop  in  town.  It  is  not  good  when  either  of 
them  is  made  cynical,  and  sneers  at  the  possibility 
of  virtue  because  of  the  vice  which  he  has  felt  in 
its  contamination  at  his  side.  The  true  soul,  with 
a  character  of  its  own,  will  learn  the  possibility  of 
being  good  from  his  own  consciousness,  all  the 
more  strongly  because  of  the  vice  that  touches  him. 
No  soul,  bad  in  itself,  can  really  learn  the  possi- 
bility of  goodness  by  mere  sight  and  touch  even 
of  a  world  of  saints,  and  no  soul  really  good  can 

T 


274  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xiii. 

lose  the  noble  consciousness  that  man  was  made 
for  goodness,  even  though  all  the  world  but  him 
is  steeped  in  wickedness, — nay,  in  subtle  ways  he 
will  feed  that  consciousness  there. 

And  so  there  is  a  perpetual  qualification,  an 
ever-recurring  limitation  to  the  truth  of  all  that 
we  can  say  about  the  influence  of  friendship. 
You  hear  men  say  to  you,  "  Seek  the  society  of 
noble  men.  Live  with  the  true,  the  faithful,  and 
the  brave  ;  so  you  shall  be  true  and  brave  and 
faithful."  It  is  most  wise  advice  ;  it  is  the  thing 
you  ought  to  do  ;  but  if  you  think  that  that  is 
all,  if  men  talk  to  you  as  if  that  were  all,  and 
as  if  the  working  of  that  law  were  certain,  you 
both  are  wrong.  There  are  men  enough  in  the 
world  to-day  who  are  being  made  worse  by  living 
with  the  best  and  purest.  Judas  could  never  have 
come  to  be  the  wretch  he  was  if  he  had  lived  out 
his  quiet  stupid  days  among  the  men  in  Kerioth, 
and  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  never  crossed  his  path. 
Many  an  unbeliever  is  being  made  more  unbeliev- 
ing by  the  faith  which  is  filling  the  house  he 
lives  in.  Many  an  impure  heart  is  growing  viler 
because  of  the  purity  with  which  it  lives  in  daily 
company.  Many  a  narrow  soul  is  not  broadened 
but  narrowed,  pinched  into  a  more  wretched  sel- 
fishness, by  the  large  thought  and  sweet  charity 
which  bathes  it.     Souls  are  darker  for  the  sun* 


XIII.]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  275 

shine,  souls  are  colder  for  the  warmth,  with  which 
they  live  in  daily  company.  And  why  ?  Because 
heaven  does  not  make  holiness,  but  holiness  makes 
heaven  ;  because  if  you  do  not  give  yourself  in 
sympathy  to  goodness,  goodness  cannot  give  itself 
in  influence  to  you,  because  with  what  measure 
ye  mete  it  shall  be  measured  unto  you. 

I  know  that  words  like  these  may  well  create 
misgivings  in  the  minds  of  some  of  you  who  hear 
them  as  you  think  over  your  experience.  You 
have  really  given  yourself  to  men  ;  you  know  that 
you  have  given  yourself  sympathetically  and  un- 
selfishly ;  and  where  is  your  return  ?  Reaction  has 
not  equalled  action  ;  they  have  not  given  them- 
selves to  you;  they  have  misunderstood  you;  they 
have  shut  their  doors  the  closer  the  more  you 
knocked.  After  years  of  devotion  you  stand  alone 
among  an  unregardful,  perhaps  among  a  contemp- 
tuous worldful  of  fellow  -  men.  But  oh,  my 
friend,  do  not  think  that  the  only  way  in  which  a 
man  can  give  you  of  himself  is  by  an  honour  and 
affection  of  which  he  is  conscious  and  of  which 
you  are  aware.  Let  me  not  think  that  I  get 
nothing  from  the  man  who  misunderstands  all 
my  attempts  to  serve  him  and  who  scorns  me 
when  I  know  that  I  deserve  his  sympathy.  Love 
and  respect  are  the  wrappings  in  which  men  give 
their  best  gifts  of  character  to  one  another.     We 


276  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xill. 


learn  to  think  of  the  gifts  by  their  bright  beauti- 
ful wrappings.  The  gifts  are  beautiful  to  us,  'n 
part  because  of  the  beautiful  enfoldings  in  which 
they  have  come  to  us.  But  if  some  day  a  man 
thrusts  into  my  hands  the  gift  all  naked  and 
stripped  of  its  natural  legitimate  adornments,  shall 
I  not  take  it?  Shall  I  not  see  all  the  more  the 
real  essential  beauty  and  preciousness  that  is  in 
it  just  because  the  silk  and  silver  which  I  looked 
for  to  proclaim  its  preciousness  are  swept  away. 
Ah  !  it  would  be  sad  enough  if  only  the  men  who 
understood  us  and  were  grateful  to  us  when  we 
gave  ourselves  to  them,  had  help  to  give  us  in 
return  !  The  good  reformer  whom  you  try  to 
help  in  his  reform,  and  who  turns  off  from  you 
contemptuously  because  he  distrusts  you,  seeing 
that  your  ways  are  different  from  his,  he  does  not 
make  you  happy — he  makes  you  unhappy  ;  but 
he  makes  you  good,  he  leads  you  to  a  truer  insight, 
a  more  profound  unselfishness.  And  so  (it  is  the 
old  lesson),  not  until  goodness  becomes  the  one 
thing  that  you  desire,  not  until  you  gauge  all 
growth  and  gain  by  that,  not  until  then  can  you 
really  know  that  the  law  has  worked,  the  promise 
has  been  fulfilled.  With  what  measure  you  gave 
yourself  to  him,  he  has  given  himself — the  heart 
o"  himself,  which  is  not  his  favour,  not  his  love, 
but  his  goodness,  the  real  heart  of  himself  to  you 


XIIL]  the  gift  and  its  return.  27J 

For  the  rest  you  can  easily  wait  until  you  both 
come  to  the  better  world,  where  misconceptions 
shall  have  passed  away  and  the  outward  forms 
and  envelopes  of  things  shall  correspond  perfectly 
with  their  inner  substances  for  ever. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  good  men  give  us 
their  goodness  if  we  really  give  ourselves  unsel- 
fishly to  them.  And  how  is  it  if  he  to  whom  you 
give  yourselves  is  not  a  good  man  but  a  bad  man  ? 
How  is  it  when  the  patient  father  devotes  himself 
to  a  reckless  child,  or  the  long-suffering  wife  to 
the  brutal  husband  ?  Who  of  us  has  not  seen 
how  the  devoted  life,  even  if  it  failed  to  develop 
the  better  life  in  the  soul  for  which  it  sacrificed 
itself,  and  so  did  not  win  that  soul  as  it  longed  to 
do  for  its  reward,  still  drew  for  itself  out  of  its 
labour  for  the  degraded  soul  a  new  abundance  of 
the  very  virtues  which  it  could  not  plant  in  such 
reluctant  soil.  The  pure  nature  may  fail  to  make 
the  wretch  it  loves  pure,  but  it  becomes  more 
pure  itself  in  the  long  struggle.  The  tender  soul 
wins  deeper  tenderness  in  its  despairing  effort  to 
soften  the  brutal  soul  beside  it.  The  brave  patriot 
cannot  make  the  sluggish  nation  spring  upon  its 
feet  for  liberty,  but  his  appeals  summon  a  deeper 
patriotism  and  love  of  freedom  in  his  own  patriotic 
liberty-loving  heart.  Alas  for  us  if  we  only  gave 
to  those  who  help  us  a  return  proportioned  to  our 


278  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xiil. 

poor  acceptance  and  appro'priation  of  their  help. 
It  is  not  how  we  take  them,  but  how  they  give 
themselves  to  us,  that  settles  what  shall  be  the 
rebound  from  us  to  their  own  lives.  Often  it  is 
good  to  know  that  if  the  light  that  has  shone 
upon  us  seems  to  have  left  us  wholly  dark,  it  has  at 
least  drawn  out  of  our  darkness  some  new,  deeper, 
and  finer  brightness  for  him  from  whom  it  came. 

So  each  man  gets  out  of  the  world  of  men 
the  rebound,  the  increase  and  development  of  what 
he  brings  there.  Let  us  see  how  the  same  law 
applies  to  the  truths  which  men  believe,  or  the 
causes  for  which  they  labour.  Every  thoughtful 
observer  sees  two  things,  I  think,  about  men's 
relations  to  their  creeds  and  their  occupations : 
first,  that  every  creed  or  profession  has  a  great 
influence  upon  the  man  who  believes  or  practises 
it  ;  and  second,  that  no  creed  or  occupation  can 
ever  give  anything  to  a  man  except  what  his  own 
nature  brings  a  demand  and  fitness  for.  The  first 
of  these  truths  makes  our  creeds  and  occupations 
seem  of  vast  importance  ;  the  second  makes  us 
know  that  of  yet  vaster  moment  is  the  personal 
character  of  the  believer  and  the  worker.  Indeed, 
to  speak  first  of  our  occupations,  I  think  there  is 
no  more  striking  illustration  of  the  working  of  the 
law  of  action  and  reaction  than  appears  in  what 
goes  on  between  a  man  and  the  cause  or  profession 


XIII.]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  279 

to  which  his  life  is  given.  Nowhere  is  it  so  true 
that  with  what  measure  you  mete  it  shall  be 
measured  to  you  again.  You  are  a  young  man 
just  in  business,  perhaps  ;  you  have  heard  a  great 
deal,  it  may  be,  of  the  influences  of  business  life 
upon  a  man.  If  you  are  at  all  reflective — if  you 
care  at  all  what  happens  to  the  inner  part  of  you 
— you  will  begin  by  and  by  to  look  for  the  signs 
of  the  working  of  those  influences  of  which  you 
have  heard  upon  yourself  You  will  be  surprised 
to  see  that  some  of  them  come,  and  some  of  them 
fail  to  come  entirely.  It  is  impossible  to  say  of 
you,  *'  The  influence  of  trade  is  this  and  this  ; 
therefore  in  time  this  new  trader  will  be  so  and 
so."  No  doubt  it  is  true  in  general,  but  in  the 
particular  case  it  will  be  yourself  that  decides  what 
business  is  to  make  of  you.  Generous  or  stingy, 
large-idead  or  small-idead,  appreciative  or  unap- 
preciative  of  other  occupations  than  your  own  ; 
these  things  you  will  be,  not  invariably  according 
to  the  kind  of  trade  you  are  engaged  in,  but  dis- 
tinctively according  to  the  kind  of  manhood  which 
you  put  into  your  trade.  So  it  is  everywhere. 
Plenty  of  young  men  studying  law,  and  coming  out 
full  of  prejudice  and  the  very  essential  spirit  of 
injustice  ;  plenty  of  young  men  studying  medicine, 
and  coming  out  coarse  instead  of  fine,  brutal  in- 
stead of  reverent ;  plenty  of  young  men  studying 


28o  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xiu. 

divinity,  and  gathering  unspirituality  and  unchari- 
tableness  out  of  the  very  marrow  of  the  gospel  ; 
plenty  of  men,  old  and  young,  giving  their  days 
and  nights  to  philanthropy  and  the  public  weal, 
and  growing  more  selfish  and  jealous  out  of  the 
very  substance  of  practical  benevolence.  Nay, 
shall  we  not  say  it  ?  plenty  of  churchmen,  earnest, 
true,  devoted,  who,  bringing  to  the  Church  un- 
churchly  hearts,  hearts  lacking  in  the  breadth  and 
simplicity  and  freedom  and  devotion  of  the  true 
catholicity,  are  made  unchurchly  by  all  their 
Church  associations,  and  come  in  the  end  to  parti- 
sanship, which  is  the  most  unchurchly  thing  on  earth. 
And  then  see  how  it  is  with  creeds.  We  try 
to  bring  one  friend  to  hold  some  certain  faith, 
certain  that  if  he  does  hold  it,  it  will  influence  his 
character  ;  and  we  are  right.  Great  is  the  power 
of  truth !  As  he  thinketh  in  his  heart  so  is  he ! 
And  yet  behind  this  fact  there  always  is  the  other, 
that  no  truth  can  give  its  treasure  up  to  any  man 
except  through  that  in  him  which  is  conformable 
to  it.  A  creed  must  fill  a  man's  character  before 
it  really  takes  possession  of  his  mind,  as  the  ocean 
has  to  fill  a  vessel  with  its  water  before  it  can 
swallow  it  up  into  its  depth.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  single  truth  of  the  Incarnation  of  Christ ;  that 
God  has  manifested  Himself  in  intimate  union 
with  humanity.      You  love  that  truth  and  live  by 


xiiL]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  281 

it  It  gives  you  out  of  its  heart  stores  of  help  and 
strength  and  comfort.  Then  you  bring  your  child 
or  your  friend  to  it  and  say,  "  Believe  this  blessed 
truth  and  it  shall  help  you  too."  He  does  believe 
it  so  far  as  arguments  can  make  him,  and  it  coes 
not  help  him  in  the  least.  He  gets  out  of  it 
nothing.  And  by  and  by  you  begin  to  feel  where 
the  difficulty  is.  He  brings  to  the  intellectual  con- 
ception no  spiritual  condition  which  can  summon 
forth  its  virtue.  He  has  no  craving  after  higher 
company,  no  hungry  need  of  God,  no  high  percep- 
tion of  the  possibility  of  man.  No  self,  rich  and  at 
the  same  time  needy  with  all  these,  does  he  give 
to  the  sublime  truth  of  the  Incarnation,  and  so  it 
gives  nothing  back  to  him. 

Happily  the  truth  has  a  previous  power  to 
make  men  conscious  of  their  need  of  it  before  it 
offers  itself  to  them  for  their  belief.  So  it  is  able, 
as  all  great  truths  are,  first  to  create  the  spirituality 
which  can  believe  it ;  as  a  great  nature  not 
merely  offers  itself  to  us  to  love  and  honour,  but 
before  that,  lifts  and  refines  us,  so  that  we  shall 
be  capable  of  loving  and  honouring  it.  But  until 
a  creed  has  done  that  for  a  man,  it  cannot  give 
him  its  real  truth.  The  more  he  believes  it,  the 
more  he  may  get  out  of  it  just  exactly  the  opposite 
of  its  real  sense  and  meaning.  This  is  the  reason 
why  you  cannot  finally  judge  men  by  their  creeds. 


282  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xilL 

A  man  may  hold  the  most  spiritual  doctrine,  and 
be  carnal  and  mercenary  ;  a  man  may  hold  the 
broadest  truth,  and  be  a  bigot ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  all  our  religious  history  bears  witness  that  a 
man  may  hold  hard,  crude,  narrow  doctrine,  and  yet 
gather  out  of  his  belief  in  it  rich,  warm,  sweet  holi- 
ness which  men  and  God  must  love.  It  does  not 
prove,  as  men  so  often  superficially  and  feebly  say, 
that  there  is  no  value  in  the  differences  of  doctrines; 
but  it  does  keep  always  superior,  always  supreme, 
the  greater  value  that  is  in  the  differences  of  men. 
I  turn  to  one  more  illustration  of  the  working 
of  our  law — the  highest,  the  completest  of  them 
all.  A  man  gives  himself  to  nature,  he  gives  him- 
self to  the  world  and  fellow-man,  he  gives  himself 
to  truth  ;  and  then,  as  the  crown  of  all,  as  that 
which  ought  to  come  first  and  be  the  comprehend- 
ing power  of  all  the  rest,  he  gives  himself  to 
Jesus.  They  are  old  and  familiar  words.  They 
are  words  which  have  been  precious  to  so  many 
souls,  words  which  have  been  held,  as  it  were,  in 
so  many  hands  of  all  degrees  of  purity  and  earnest- 
ness, that  it  is  no  wonder  if  they  come  to  us  with 
soma  memory  of  the  lowness  and  insincerity  which 
has  sometimes  been  laid  upon  them.  Men  have 
put  many  meanings  into  them.  The  exhorter  in 
the  inquiry  meeting  has  assailed  the  soul  of  some 
anxious  disciple,  and  questioned  him,  "  Have  you 


xiii.]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  283 

given  yourself  to  Jesus  ?  "  and  urged  him,  "  Will 
you  not  give  yourself  to  Jesus  now  ? "  until  the 
act  has  seemed  to  be  some  strange  external  tran- 
saction which  a  man  might  do  almost  as  he  would 
draw  money  out  of  one  bank  and  deposit  it  in 
another  which  was  safer.  All  this  has  made  the 
words  seem  misty  sometimes,  and  unreal  ;  but  yet 
they  are  great  words  which  we  cannot,  which  the 
world  never  can,  let  go.  There  are  no  other  words 
to  take  their  place.  They  describe  the  completest 
action  that  the  spiritual  man  can  do.  When  a  man 
most  completely  gathers  up  himself,  his  standards, 
his  wishes,  his  resolutions,  his  loves,  his  plans,  his 
powers,  and  transfers  them  all  together  to  a  new 
region  where  holiness  shall  be  the  law  and  love 
the  motive  of  their  life,  there  are  no  words  to  tell 
what  that  change  is  that  are  so  comprehensive  and 
complete  as  these.  That  man  has  given  himself 
to  Jesus.  When  I  want  to  urge  my  friend  to  one 
entire  salvation,  in  which  all  the  partial  salvations 
of  conduct,  of  happiness,  of  taste  shall  be  includedj 
I  can  ask  him  nothing  larger  than  this  old  ques- 
tion, which  has  summoned  such  multitudes  of  people 
to  the  higher  life,  and  so  which  will  be  dear  in 
their  remembrance  throughout  all  eternity — the 
question  of  questions,  Will  you  not  give  yourself 
to  Jesus  ? 

And  now,  in  that  great  giving,  in  that  supreme 


284  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xili. 

self-consecration,  does  our  law  still  hold,  the  law 
of  action  and  reaction,  the  law  that  only  in  the 
measure  in  which  the  gift  is  given  can  the  answer 
come  ?  Indeed  it  does.  Nowhere,  as  all  our  ex- 
perience bears  witness,  does  it  so  completely  hold. 
For  there  are  different  measures  in  which  men  give 
themselves  to  Christ,  and  Christ  despises  none  of 
them  ;  but  in  different  measures  He  again  is_com^ 
pelled  to  give  Himself  back  to  them.  See  how 
they  come  !  One  man  approaches  the  divine  Re- 
deemer asking  no  divine  redemption,  but  touched 
and  fascinated  by  the  beauty  of  that  perfect  life. 
He  would  feed  his  wonder,  he  would  cultivate  his 
taste,  upon  it.  To  him  Jesus  gives  what  he  asks, 
and  with  delighted  wonder  and  with  cultivated  taste 
the  satisfied  asker  goes  away.  It  is  as  if  a  man 
painted  a  mountain  for  its  picturesqueness,  and 
carried  off  his  picture  in  delight,  never  dreaming 
that  he  left  behind  him  in  the  mountain's  bosom 
treasures  of  gold  which  only  waited  for  his  hand  to 
gather  them.  Another  man  comes  to  Jesus  with 
a  self  that  is  all  alive  with  curiosity.  He  takes 
Christ's  revelations — for  Christ  does  not  refuse 
him  either — and  goes  away  content  to  know  much 
of  God  and  man,  and  what  there  is  beyond  this 
world.  Another  man  comes  to  Jesus  with  a  self 
all  trembling  with  fear,  all  eager  for  safety,  and 
Jesus  satisfies  him  ;  He  lets  him  know  that  even 


XIII.]'  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  285 

the  humblest,  and  most  ignorant,  and  least  aspir- 
ing soul,  which  repents  of  and  forsakes  its  sin,  and 
seeks  forgiveness,  shall  not  be  lost.  Each  gets 
from  Jesus  that  which  the  nature  which  He  brings 
can  take.  With  what  measure  each  gives  himself 
to  the  Saviour,  the  Saviour  gives  Himself  in  His 
salvation  back  to  each.  Only  when  at  last  there 
comes  a  man  with  his  self  all  open,  with  door  be- 
hind door,  back  into  the  most  secret  chambers,  all 
unclosed,  ready  to  give  himself  entirely,  wanting 
everything,  ready  to  take  everything  that  Jesus 
has  to  give,  wanting  and  ready  to  take  the  whole 
of  Jesus  into  the  whole  of  himself,  only  then  are 
the  last  gates  withdrawn  ;  and  as  when  the  ocean 
gathers  itself  up  and  enters  with  its  tide  the  open 
mouth  of  the  river,  like  a  conqueror  riding  into  a 
surrendered  town,  so  does  the  Lord  in  all  His 
richness,  with  His  perfect  standards.  His  mighty 
motives.  His  infinite  hopes,  give  Himself  to  the 
soul  which  has  been  utterly  given  to  Him. 

Men  talk  as  if  it  were  not  always  so.  Men 
talk  as  if  because  Christ  is  the  same  loving,  willing 
Christ  for  all  of  us,  and  all  of  us  are  nothing  and 
can  have  nothing  but  for  Him,  therefore  the  meagre 
mercenary  saint  ought  to  shine  with  the  same  lustre 
as  the  pure  spirit  passionate  for  holiness,  and  ready 
for  all  the  completed  will  of  God.  As  if  one  said 
that  because  the  sun  is  the  same  sun  always,  and 


286  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  [xiIL 

because  there  is  no  light  except  from  Him,  there- 
fore the  rose  and  the  daisy  ought  to  look  alike. 
No !  He  in  His  love  outgoes  our  prayers.  He 
gives  us  more  of  what  we  ask  than  we  know 
how  to  ask  for  ;  more  beauty  to  the  seeker  after 
beauty,  more  wisdom  to  the  student,  more  safety 
to  the  poor  culprit  asking  forgiveness.  And  He  is 
always  trying  to  make  the  self  which  asks  a  larger 
self  that  He  may  give  it  other  things  of  higher 
kinds.  But  yet  the  truth  remains,  that  at  each 
moment  He  can  give  Himself  to  us  only  as  at 
that  moment  we  give  ourselves  to  Him.  As  when 
in  some  foreign  land,  in  some  strange  shrine  of 
Romish  or  Pagan  religion,  all  glorious  with  art,  all 
blazing  with  the  light  of  precious  stones,  there 
bend  around  the  altar  the  true  devotees  who 
believe  with  all  their  souls ;  while  at  the  door,  with 
heads  uncovered  and  with  faces  solemnised  by  the 
presence  of  a  ceremony  in  which  they  do  not 
believe  and  in  which  they  take  no  part,  lingers  a 
group  of  travellers  full  of  joy  at  the  wondrous 
beauty  of  the  place  ;  and  as  when  the  music 
ceases  and  the  lights  go  out  they  go  away,  each 
carrying  what  it  was  in  him  to  receive, — the  devotee 
his  spiritual  peace,  the  artistic  tourist  his  aesthetic 
joy :  so  men  bestow  themselves  on  Christ,  and  by 
the  selves  that  they  bestow  on  Him  the  giving  of 
Himself  to  them  must  of  necessity  be  measured. 


XIII.]  THE  GIFT  AND  ITS  RETURN.  287 

I  close  in  haste  with  what  must  be  the  necessary 
consequence  of  this.  It  is  not  enough  that  Christ 
should  stand  ready  to  give  us  His  blessings.  He 
must  give  us  the  nature  to  which  those  blessings 
can  be  given.  What  we  want  of  Him  is  not 
merely  His  gifts  ;  it  is  ourselves  ;  He  must  give  us 
them  first.  To  them  only  can  He  give  Himself, 
which  is  His  perfect  gift.  Not  merely  with  out- 
stretched hands  but  with  open  hearts  we  must 
stand  before  Him.  We  must  pray  not  merely  that 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  may  come,  but  that  we 
may  be  born  again,  so  that  we  may  see  it.  If 
that  prayer  shall  be  answered,  then  to  each  of  us 
even  here  upon  the  earth  shall  begin  that  which 
is  to  be  the  everlasting  wonder  and  delight  of 
heaven,  the  perfect  giving  of  the  Lord  to  souls 
that  are  perfectly  given  to  Him,  the  everlasting 
action  and  reaction,  the  unhindered  beating  back 
and  forth  of  need  and  grace  between  the  Saviour 
en  His  throne  and  His  servants  at  their  tireless 
work  for  Hiin. 


XIV. 

•YOUR  JOY  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM 
YOU."» 

•*  And  your  joy  no  man  taketh  from  you." — John  xvi.  3S. 

That  our  happiness  is  largely  in  the  power  of 
other  people  than  ourselves  is  a  conviction  which 
we  reach  very  early  in  our  lives.  Our  joys  seem 
to  stand  with  open  gates,  so  that  almost  any  in- 
truder may  come  in.  The  child  whose  life  has 
not  yet  separated  itself  from  the  parent  life,  and 
still  shares  its  fortunes  ;  the  merchant  whose  ship 
sails  or  founders  with  the  great  business  fleet ;  the 
thinker  who  cannot  escape  the  intellectual  tend- 
encies and  imperfections  of  his  times  ;  the  public 
man  whose  good  name  is  in  the  keeping  of  the 
fickle  populace — all  of  these  are  illustrations  of 
the  way  in  which  the  satisfaction  and  the  peace  of 
life  are  always  open  to  invasion.  No  man  can  shut 
his  gates  and  say,  "  I  will  find  my  happiness  only 

^  Preached  in   Christ   Church,    Marylebone,    London,   Sunday 
morning,  15th  July  1883. 


Xtr.]    **yO[/I?/OYArO  JL4JVTAA'£T/y  FA!OJf  V0[/.       2S9 


in  myself,  and  what  I  find  no  man  shall  take  away 
from  me."  If  any  man  says  that  he  dooms  him- 
self to  the  most  meagre  life,  and  even  in  tliat  he 
fails  ;  even  the  poor  fields  which  he  can  plant  with 
his  own  seed  he  cannot  keep  completely  to  himself. 
It  seems  as  if  all  our  social  arrangements  and 
relationships  were  not  more  fitted  to  make  us 
furnishers  of  joy  to  one  another  than  they  are  to 
give  to  every  man  the  chance  to  put  his  hand,  if 
he  wills,  into  the  midst  of  some  other  man's  lot, 
and  to  pluck  away  its  happiness.  Husband  and 
wife,  father  and  child,  teacher  and  scholar,  master 
and  servant — how  they  all  hold  each  other's  plea- 
sures at  their  will ! 

This   is   one  view  of  life  which   is   perpetuall} 
presenting  itself      It  stands  up  face  to  face  wit? 
that  other  thought  which  all  self-reliant  and  strong 
men  try  to  keep  hold   of — the  thought  of  self 
sufficiency.      To  be  independent  of  our  fellow- men 
to  have  the  sources  of  all   happiness   in   our  owi 
lives,  to  let  the  world  swing  and  surge  around   us 
like  the  ocean  around  a  steadfast  rock — this  is  the 
other  thought  which  no  man  can  wholly  cast  away. 
It  never  finds  its  realisation  ;    it  always  meets  the 
interference  of  our  brethren.      Practically,  almost 
all   men's  lives  vacillate  between  the  two.     One 
moment  we  are  all    our   own,  keeping   our   own 
reserves,  deciding  our  own  destinies.      The  next 

U 


290     "  YOUR  JO  V  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU. "   [xiv. 

moment  we  are  all  our  neighbour's.  He  decides 
whether  we  are  to  be  sad  or  happy,  good  or  bad. 

It  is  in  the  midst  of  a  bewilderment  like  this 
that  Christ  comes  in  with  the  words  which  I  have 
made  my  text  this  morning.  As  He  sat  with  His 
disciples  at  the  farewell  supper,  He  looked  around 
on  them,  and  said,  "  I  will  see  you  again  and  your 
heart  shall  rejoice,  and  your  joy  no  man  taketh 
from  you."  In  these  words  He  declared  that  there 
was  a  joy  which  no  man  could  disturb.  There  is 
a  limit  to  our  power  over  one  another ;  there  is 
a  chamber  of  our  inner  selves  where  we  may  turn 
the  key  and  no  one  can  come  in.  I  want  to  study 
that  limit  with  you  ;  I  want  to  see  whether  we 
can  discover  where  it  runs  and  how  it  can  be 
recognised.  Where  is  it  that,  behind  all  the 
regions  in  which  we  are  what  other  men  make  us, 
we  can,  we  must  be  ourselves  ? 

And  first,  the  very  fact  that  there  is  such  a 
limit  interests  us.  We  can  see  how  good  it  is  for 
a  man's  life  that,  while  there  should  be  great  regions 
of  his  happiness  which  are  involved  with  what 
other  men  are  and  do,  there  should  be  also  other 
regions  which  no  man  but  himself  can  touch. 
The  completest  house  for  a  man  to  live  in  is  one 
whose  outer  rooms  are  hospitably  open  to  whoever 
comes  with  any  claim  to  hospitality,  but  which  has 
inner  chambers  where  only  the  master  of  the  house 


XXV.]    ^^YOURJOY NO  MANTAKETH FROM  YOVP    291 

and  those  who  make  up  his  household  have  a  right 
to  enter.  The  best  stock  of  ideas  which  any  man 
can  keep  is  that  which,  while  it  is  in  the  main 
harmonious  with  the  thoughts  of  other  men  who 
live  in  the  same  time,  and  subject  to  their  influence, 
yet  has  at  its  heart  convictions  which  are  the  man's 
own,  and  which  no  other  can  invade.  Now,  is  it 
not  the  same  with  regard  to  the  happiness  of  life  ? 
There  would  be  something  almost  terrible  if  each 
of  us  held  his  power  of  happiness  untouched,  un- 
touchable by  any  other  man.  Think  how  much 
of  the  finest  and  richest  of  our  intercourse  with 
one  another,  how  much  of  the  most  delicate  con- 
sideration, how  much  of  the  purest  motive  for  self- 
sacrifice  and  patience,  would  be  lost  if  we  had  no 
power  of  invading  and  interfering  with  each  other's 
joy.  It  would  be  almost  a  world  of  chartered 
selfishness.  Why  should  I  think  of  any  one  except 
myself  if,  no  matter  what  I  do,  I  cannot  hurt  that 
happiness  which  my  brother  carries  shut  away  in 
the  safe  precincts  of  his  own  life  ?  No.  It  is  the 
pledge  of  our  best  intercourse  with  one  another, 
the  assurance  of  our  sacredest  relationships,  that 
we  have  vast  power  to  make  one  another  unhappy. 
The  necessary  condition  of  that  privilege  which 
the  father  has  of  filling  his  child's  life  with  sun- 
shine is  the  other  power,  which  just  as  certainly 
belongs   to   hiir,   of   darkening   it   with   a  heavy 


292    "  YOUR  JO  V  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU."    [si^. 

cloud.  What  would  you  care  for  any  man's  sym- 
pathy or  approbation  if  all  the  while  you  knew 
that  that  same  man's  sneer  or  coldness  would  not 
give  you  even  a  twinge  of  pain  ?  So  necessary  is 
it  to  our  best  life  with  one  another  that  we  should 
have  power  over  one  another's  joy. 

And  yet  we  can  see  just  as  clearly  how  dreadful 
it  would  be  if  this  power  reached  in  to  the  deepest 
happinesses  of  which  we  are  capable.  All  of  us 
practically  insist  that  there  shall  be  some  enjoy- 
ments with  which  no  man  shall  interfere.  With 
my  ordinary  acquaintances  almost  any  man's 
slander  may  put  me  for  the  time  out  of  conceit, 
but  my  friendship  with  my  tried  and  trusted 
friend  there  is  no  slander  that  can  ruffle  for 
a  moment.  My  light  prejudices  and  tastes  any 
zephyr  may  disturb,  but  upon  my  deep  and  satis- 
fied convictions  of  what  is  true  a  tempest  may 
blow  in  all  its  fury  and  they  will  not  shake.  Every 
deep  and  true  man,  every  man  with  a  genuine 
personal  character,  has  some  source  of  pleasure  so 
hidden  away  that  no  man's  foot  can  find  it,  no 
human  malice  can  poison  it.  He  himself  must 
change  before  he  can  lose  that  enjoyment 

Now  hear  what  Jesus  says  to  His  disciples— 
"Your  heart  shall  rejoice  and  your  joy  no  man 
taketh  from  you."  It  was  a  special  joy,  the 
inmost,  the   most   secret  and   sacred  of  all   joys 


XIV.]    ^''YOURJOY NO  MANTAKETH FROM  you'*    293 

which  their  Master  promised.  Not  for  those 
disciples  more  than  for  other  men  was  nature  to 
be  changed,  or  their  relations  with  their  fellow-men 
to  be  robbed  of  the  power  of  painfulness.  Still,  if 
you  stabbed  them  they  would  bleed,  if  you  burnt 
them  they  would  smart.  Still,  if  men  taunted  them 
they  would  quiver  with  the  blow,  if  men  were 
ungrateful  to  them  their  hearts  sank  in  disappoint- 
ment. Still,  just  as  before  Christ  gave  them  His 
promise,  their  reverence  was  shocked,  their  love 
was  wounded,  their  trust  was  betrayed,  their 
motives  were  misjudged  by  fellow-men.  But 
behind  all  this  His  words  revealed  to  them  a  self 
out  of  men's  power,  something  which  no  fellow- 
man  could  touch.  As  I  think  about  their  after  lives, 
I  can  see  them  perpetually  retreating  into  that,  I 
can  see  them  letting  other  joys  go  and  not  hating 
the  hands  which  robbed  them  of  them  in  the 
consciousness  of  this  inmost  joy,  which  no  intru- 
sion could  invade.  As  I  watch  the  growing  life 
of  the  disciples,  I  see  them  coming  to  the  best 
picture  of  what  a  human  life  ought  to  be,  open 
and  sensitive  and  sympathetic,  and  yet  all  the 
while  self- respectful  and  independent ;  feeling 
other  men  and  yet  living  their  own  life  ;  as 
responsive  as  the  ocean's  surface  to  the  winds  of 
the  living  humanity  which  blew  across  them,  and 
yet  keeping,  like  the  ocean,  a  calm  and   hidden 


294     "  yO  UR  JO  y  NO  MA  N  TA  KETH  FR  OM  YO  U. "   [xiv. 

depth  which  no  storm  upon  the  surface  could 
disturb. 

And  Jesus  tells  His  disciples  just  what  the 
power  of  this  secret  joy  is  to  be.  It  is  to  be  His 
presence  with  them  :  "  I  will  see  you  again,  and 
your  heart  shall  rejoice,  and  your  joy  no  man 
taketh  from  you."  Everything  is  based  upon  the 
association  which  they  are  to  have  with  Christ 
their  Master.  There  is  nothing  at  all  of  self- 
sufficiency  in  what  is  promised.  It  is  not  that 
these  men  are  to  develop  some  interior  strength, 
or  to  drift  into  some  region  of  calm  indifference 
where  the  influences  of  their  fellow-men  shall  not 
touch  them  any  longer.  It  is  that  they  are  to 
come  to  a  new  life  with  Him.  The  new  joy 
which  is  to  enter  into  them,  which  they  are  to 
enter  into,  is  to  be  distinctly  a  joy  of  relationship 
and  not  of  self-containment,  a  joy  which  is  to 
escape  the  invasion  of  the  men  who  disturb  all 
other  joys  by  being  held  in  the  hand  of  a  stronger 
being  out  of  which  no  earthly  power  shall  be  able 
to  pluck  it  away. 

And  how  natural  this  is !  how  it  agrees  with 
all  that  we  know  of  the  perpetual  necessities  of 
human  nature !  Only  the  association  of  some 
higher  and  stronger  person  can  even  really  save 
one  from  the  absorption  and  contamination  of  some 
lower  persons  who  are  swamping  and  ruining  his 


XIV.]    *'YOURJOY NO  MAN  TAKETH FROM  YOU."    295 


life.  Suppose  you  have  a  boy  who  is  being  over- 
whelmed and  lost  by  and  through  his  faculties  of 
companionship.  Have  you  not  learned,  all  of  you 
who  are  considerate  and  thoughtful  parents,  that 
it  is  through  these  same  faculties  of  companionship 
that  he  must  be  saved.  When  I  talk  about  his 
being  lost  and  saved  I  mean  what  these  words 
literally  signify,  and  not  what  usage  has  attached 
to  them  as  a  sort  of  secondary  meaning.  A  boy 
is  lost  when  he  ceases  to  be  a  positive  and 
individual  existence,  when  he  becomes  a  mere 
puppet  or  echo  or  image  of  the  lives  around  him. 
A  boy  is  saved  when  his  life  is  plucked  out  of  the 
sea  of  imitation  and  promiscuous  subserviency,  and 
made  a  real  thing,  with  its  own  consciousness,  its 
own  intentions,  its  own  meaning,  its  own  character. 
Suppose,  in  this  sense,  your  boy's  life  is  being  lost, 
how  will  you  save  it  ?  Can  there  be  any  power 
like  that  of  a  stronger  person,  a  large,  rich,  simple 
nature,  who,  entering  into  close  companionship  with 
this  flickering  life,  shall  steady  it,  reveal  it  to  itself, 
call  out  its  best  activities,  and  open  for  it  a  positive 
career.  It  must  be  a  person  who  makes  high 
demands,  who  declares  duties,  and  who  clothes 
those  duties  with  the  imperiousness  of  love.  It 
will  not  be  simply  by  forbidding  your  boy  to  have 
connection  with  those  poor  companions  who  are 
dissipating  him  ;  it  will  not  be  by  shutting  him  in 


296     "YOUR  JOY  NO  MA  N  TA  KE  TH  FR  OM  YO  U. "   [xi  T. 


upon  himself  that  you  will  save  him.  A  stronger 
person  must  be  his  saviour;  a  life  that  shall  control 
and  lift  his  life  must  make  him  be  himself.  Now 
this  is  just  what  Jesus  did  for  those  disciples. 
He  never  once  said  to  them,  "  Be  yourselves." 
He  said,  "  Be  mine."  And  it  was  when  He  gave 
them  His  things  to  do,  when  He  said  to  them, 
"  Go  preach,"  "  Go  heal,"  "  Go  build  the  Church," 
that  through  these  channels  of  obedience  He  poured 
His  life  into  their  life,  and  gave  to  them  a  fresh 
and  joyous  being,  far  in  behind  the  power  of  any 
man  to  touch  or  blight. 

Some  men  who  talk  about  the  influence  of 
Jesus  seem  to  make  it  a  mere  sentimental  thing. 
They  dwell  upon  the  love  which  He  poured  out 
upon  His  friends.  They  show  us  love  glowing  in 
the  hearts  and  shining  from  the  faces  of  those 
disciples  in  return.  Other  men  talk  about  the 
mastery  of  Christ.  He  gave  His  servants  things  to 
do.  He  said,  "  Take  up  this  cross,"  "  Behold  this 
task  which  waits  for  you."  He  shaped  their  lives 
mto  new  habits.  It  was  not  either  of  these  alone. 
Until  we  grasp  them  both  into  one  thought  we 
have  not  understood  His  power.  He  loved  them 
and  made  them  love  Him,  but  it  was  through  the 
obedience  which  He  demanded  of  them  that  His 
love  became  a  transforming  power.  That  was 
His  company  with  them,  the  fulness,  the  complete- 


XIV.  ]   "  YOUR  JO  V  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YO  U. "    297 

ness  of  the  idea  of  companionship.  And  He  is 
just  the  same  to  us.  To  us  too  He  brings  love 
awakening  love, and  authority  demanding  obedience. 
"  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,"  He  declares.  And 
souls  to-day,  many  and  many  of  your  souls,  my 
friends,  have  found  the  rich  fulfilment  of  His 
promise.  Sometimes  it  comes  to  us  with  a 
strange  surprise.  When  we  are  living  on  as  if  we 
lived  alone,  when  we  are  sitting  working  silently 
in  some  still  room  which  we  think  is  empty  but 
for  our  own  presence,  when  we  are  busy  in  some 
work  which  seems  as  if  it  were  our  work,  to  be 
done  as  we  should  please  ;  slowly,  sweetly,  surely 
we  become  aware  of  a  richer  presence  which  is 
truly  with  us,  of  a  love  which  enfolds  us,  and  an 
authority  which  controls  us.  We  are  not  alone. 
The  work  is  not  our  work  but  His.  The  strength 
to  do  it  with  is  not  to  be  called  up  out  of  the 
depths  of  ourselves,  but  taken  down  from  the 
heights  of  Him.  The  room  is  full,  the  world  is 
full  of  Jesus.  He  is  doing  what  he  said  he  would 
do  He  is  with  us  as  He  said  He  would  be  ; 
ana  as  we  answer  love  with  love  and  authority 
with  obedience,  we  find  that  we  are  indeed  lifted 
into  a  sober  and  serious  happiness  which  nothing 
can  invade,  a  joy  which  no  man  can  take 
from  us. 

Let  us  try  to  bear  this  in  mind  as  we  pass  on 


298    "  YOUR  JO  Y  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU."   [xiv. 

now  to  speak  of  some  of  the  interferences  with 
the  pleasures  of  Hfe  which  come  from  our  fellow- 
men,  and  of  the  way  in  which  the  soul's  life  with 
Christ  puts  those  same  pleasures  out  of  the  reach 
of  any  fellow-man's  intrusion.  Take  first,  if  you 
please,  the  pleasure  of  energetic  action.  It  is  a 
joy  which  makes  life  bright  to  the  best  men  ;  a 
joy  so  bright  that  never  to  have  felt  it,  not  to  feel 
it  always  beating  like  the  blood  through  all  one's 
veins,  must  surely  be  a  very  desolate  and  dull 
existence.  There  are  men  who  make  their  life 
out  of  idleness,  out  of  having  the  world  do  for 
them  what  they  need,  and  in  such  strange  shapes 
are  some  men  made,  that  no  doubt  there  is  for 
some  men  some  sort  of  joy  in  that.  But  to  be  at 
work,  to  do  things  for  the  world,  to  turn  the 
currents  of  the  things  about  us  by  our  will,  to 
make  our  existence  a  positive  element,  even 
though  it  be  no  bigger  than  a  grain  of  sand,  in 
this  great  system  where  we  live,  that  is  a  new  joy 
of  which  the  idle  man  knows  no  more  than  the 
mole  knows  of  the  sunshine,  or  the  serpent  of  the 
eagle's  triumphant  flight  into  the  upper  air.  The 
man  who  knows  indeed  what  it  is  to  act,  to  work, 
cries  out,  "  This,  this  alone  is  to  live!"  Oh,  the 
poor  creatures  whom  their  father's  money  or  their 
own  sluggish  wills  have  robbed  of  the  great  human 
delight  of  action,  the  men  to  whom  "  thiugs  pro* 


XIV.]    ''YOUR  JOY  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU.       299 


vided  come  without  the  sweet  sense  of  providing." 
But  what  then  ?  What  are  the  interferences 
which  this  joy  meets  ?  Are  they  not  these  ? 
T  speak  only  of  those  which  come  fi-om  fellow- 
men,  not  of  those  which  are  the  result  of  the 
hard  nature  of  the  material  of  the  earth  we 
have  to  work  on.  Are  they  not  these  ?  Some 
opposition  to  our  action  by  the  action  of  some 
other  active  man  ;  or  the  contemptuous  discovery 
and  announcement  of  the  incompleteness  of  the 
thing  we  do  ;  or  the  ingratitude  and  irresponsive- 
ness  of  the  men  whom  we  want  our  act  to  benefit. 
Opposition,  criticism,  and  ingratitude,  these  are  the 
ways  in  which  other  men  meet  an  active  man, 
and  take  the  joy  of  his  activity  away  from  him, 
and  make  his  work  a  drudgery.  Here  is  a  man 
in  public  life.  The  happiness  of  dealing  with  the 
state's  affairs,  of  throwing  his  will  and  labour  into 
the  country's  destinies,  is  what  his  soul  is  full  of; 
he  has  dreamed  of  it  while  he  was  a  boy,  and  now 
that  he  is  a  man  all  his  manhood  triumphs  in  it. 
Toil  counts  for  nothing,  fatigue  and  sleeplessness 
he  never  reckons  as  he  pursues  the  joy  of  public 
life,  of  action  on  the  destinies  of  men.  But  by 
and  by  what  is  it  that  has  taken  away  his  joy  ? 
Is  it  not  these  things  which  I  described  ?  Other 
men  have  stepped  across  his  path,  and  thrown 
their  will   and    energy   into   the   face  of  his,  and 


3C50    "  YOUR  JO  Y  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU.''  [xiY. 

hindered  him  from  doing  what  he  meant  to  do. 
Other  men  have  looked  through  what  he  has  done 
and  told  the  world  and  told  him,  what  his  heart 
knew  only  too  well  before,  how  far  what  he  has 
done  is  from  what  it  ought  to  be.  Other  men  for 
whom  he  laboured  have  turned  their  backs  on 
him  and  gone  away,  giving  him  curses  instead  of 
thanks.  Opposition,  criticism,  and  ingratitude, 
through  these  three  gates  other  men's  lives  have 
crept  in  on  him,  and  stolen  away  the  joy  of  his 
life.  Still  he  may  work  on  from  habit  or  from  duty, 
but  the  joy  of  working  is  departed  ;  it  is  a  dreary 
drudgery  ;  it  is  an  hourly  weariness.  Oh,  what 
hosts  of  active  men  there  are  who  in  their  middle 
life  still  go  on  working,  but  with  the  spring  all 
gone !  The  joy  of  work  some  man,  some  contact 
with  the  life  of  men,  has  taken  from  them. 

Could  that  have  been  helped  ?  Is  there  any 
help  for  that  in  all  the  world  ?  If  not,  if  all  my 
joy  in  action  is  at  the  mercy  of  my  fellow-men,  it 
is  a  dreadful  world  to  live  and  work  in.  I  may 
keep  on  working  in  spite  of  them  ;  they  may  not 
be  able  to  prevent  me  from  that ;  but  if  they  can 
take  the  joy  out  of  my  work,  it  is  a  dreadful  world. 
But  now  suppose  that  Christ  had  been  with  that 
man  whom  I  described — Christ  in  His  love  and 
His  authority — Christ  the  Friend  and  the  Master. 
I  mean  it  really.      Suppose — for,  oh,  it  is  at  least 


XIV.]    "  YOUR  JOY  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU.''    301 

supposable  —  that  behind  every  other  motive, 
shining  through  every  other  motive  which  made 
th;  man  work,  there  had  been  this,  the  love  of 
Christ.  Whoever  else  he  worked  for  secondarily,  he 
worked  for  Jesus  first  of  all.  Would  that  have 
made  no  difference  ?  Like  an  electric  atmosphere 
poured  around  the  shrine  in  which  a  jewel  rests, 
so  that  no  hand  can  be  thrust  through  to  steal 
the  jewel  ;  so  round  the  work,  full  of  its  joy,  is 
poured  the  love  of  Christ,  out  of  which  no  man 
can  snatch  it.  Suppose  that  some  strong  op- 
ponent keeps  him  from  doing  what  he  wants  to 
do, — there  is  still  the  assurance  that  his  doing 
that  is  but  a  part  of  a  vaster  accomplishment,  the 
will  of  his  great  Master,  which  he  knows  must 
come  in  its  completeness  whether  this  special  act 
of  his  attain  success  or  not. 

Suppose  that  men  taunt  him  with  his  action's 
incompleteness.  If  he  is  really  serving  Christ,  it 
is  not  as  a  whole  but  as  a  part,  it  is  as  incom- 
plete that  he  has  counted  his  act  of  any  value 
The  incompleteness  of  his  action  is  absorbed  and 
contained  in  the  larger  completeness  of  his  Master. 
He  need  not  be  complete  in  Himself,  held  as  his 
life  is  in  the  perfection  of  his  Lord. 

And  yet  again,  suppose  that  men  turn  from 
Him  with  ingratitude.  What  then  ?  If  he  has 
really  been  at  work  not  for  them  ultimately,  but 


302     **YOUR  JOY  AO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  Your    [xiT. 

for  Christ,  then  their  falling  away  may  only  leave 
the  air  more  clear  for  him  to  hear  that  "Well 
done,"  which  is  the  only  praise  he  really  values. 
Opposition  and  hindrance  cannot  pluck  away  his 
joy,  for  it  is  not  his  success  but  Christ's  that  he  is 
seeking.  Criticism  cannot  mar  his  happiness,  for 
he  has  pretended  to  nothing, — all  he  has  tried  to 
do  is  to  serve  Christ.  Ingratitude  cannot  make 
him  wretched,  for  he  appeals  to  Christ's  truer 
judgment.  To  every  consecrated  labourer  who 
works  for  Christ  there  is  a  joy  in  working  which 
no  man  can  take  away  from  him. 

Turn  now  and  see  how  all  this  is  true  of 
Christian  thought  and  the  struggle  after  truth  as 
well  as  Christian  action.  Thought  and  the  struggle 
after  truth  are  the  best  joys  of  the  best  men.  To 
follow  out  the  lines  of  speculation  and  of  revela- 
tion until  they  lead  us  near  the  heart  of  things, 
which  yet  we  know  that  we  can  never  perfectly 
reach  ;  to  make  some  few  steps  forward  on  the 
journey  which  stretches  out  before  us,  endlessly 
tempting  and  interesting,  into  eternity  ;  to  add 
each  day  some  new  stone  to  the  structure  whose 
lines  already  as  they  leave  the  earth  prophesy  avi 
infinite  height  for  the  far  topstone, — he  has  not 
lived  who  has  not  felt  this  pleasure.  He  is  not 
really  living,  however  full  he  may  be  of  warmth  of 
feeling  and  of  energy  in  action,  who  does  not  in 


XIV.]    ''YOUR  JOY  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU^    303 

some  degree  know  what  it  is  to  crave  ideas  and 
knowledge,  to  seek  for  truth,  and  to  deh'ght  in 
finding  it 

Forgive  me  if  I  turn  aside  one  moment  from 
my  course  to  say  that  the  reh'gious  temper,  while, 
in  one  action  of  it,  it  has  always  been  the  great  in- 
spirer  of  intellectual  life,  has  always  shown  another 
tendency,  to  depreciate  and  deaden  mental  action, 
to  be  content  with  glowing  feeling  and  with  faith- 
ful action,  as  if  they  made  up  the  whole  life  of  the 
religious  man.  Against  that  tendency  every  man 
who  is  religious  ought  to  be  upon  his  guard.  It 
would  be  a  dreadful  thing,  it  would  almost  prove 
that  any  form  of  religion  was  not  divine — at  least 
it  would  show  that  it  had  lost  much  of  the  beauty 
of  its  divine  creation — if  it  did  not  recognise  that 
man's  best  happiness  demands  the  exercise  of  his 
mental  powers,  and  so  did  not  invite  these  powers 
to  free  and  eager  use. 

But  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  every  thinking 
man  discovers  that  the  joy  of  thought,  as  delicate 
as  it  is  fine  and  pure,  is  one  that  lies  peculiarly 
within  the  power  of  our  fellow-men.  And  why  ? 
It  is  not  that  our  fellow-men  may  contradict  and 
even  contemptuously  abuse  some  opinion  which 
we  hold  as  true.  If  we  do  really  hold  it  perfectly 
as  true,  that  is  a  little  thing ,  it  does  not  hurt 
ns ;  it  does  not  disturb  the  quiet  happy  confidence 


304    "  YOUR  JO  V  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU.''    (xiv. 

with  which  we  rest  our  faith  upon  the  well-proved 
certainty.  But  the  trouble  is  that  the  more  one 
thinks  and  studies,  the  more  he  becomes  aware 
how  infinite  is  truth.  The  truth  which  he  has 
learned  on  any  subject,  he  becomes  aware,  is  not 
the  whole.  There  is  another  side.  There  is  a 
strange  bewildering  way  in  which  just  the  opposite 
of  the  truth  which  he  has  learned  is  true.  Every 
time,  then,  that  any  reasoner  impugns  our  truth  it 
starts  up  all  this  consciousness.  We  see  how  little 
of  absolute  impregnable  certainty  we  have  really 
reached.  We  see  how  far  we  are,  even  upon  the 
subject  which  we  know  best,  from  having  reached 
the  end  of  things  and  laid  our  faith  securely 
beside  the  ever  green  and  solid  shore  to  which  the 
tides  are  struggling.  Upon  the  subject  which  we 
know  best  we  are  still  out  at  sea.  Every  time  a 
fellow-man's  finger  touches  our  faith,  it  makes  it 
rock,  and  compels  us  to  feel  that,  however  well 
anchored  it  is,  so  that  it  will  not  drift,  it  is  very 
far  from  being  morticed  and  bolted  into  the  solid 
ground.  This  is  the  reason  why  so  many  people, 
when  their  faith  is  once  attained,  keep  it  not 
merely  as  a  very  precious  but  as  a  very  frail  and 
brittle  thing.  They  will  not  talk  with  any  one 
about  it.  They  will  not  read  anything  upon  the 
other  side.  They  will  keep  out  of  the  way  of 
anything  which  for  one  moment  can  remind  them 


XIV.]    ^^YOURJOY  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU.'*    305 


that  their  faith  is  not  complete,  that  they  have 
not  yet  understood  and  settled  everything  con- 
cerning man  and  God.  They  stand  guard  over 
their  peace  in  believing,  not  merely  with  an  in- 
stinctive knowledge  that  the  infidels  and  sceptics 
are  trying  to  take  it  away  from  them,  but  with 
an  instinctive  fear  lest  they  shall  succeed  in  their 
attempt. 

We  know  this  is  not  good  ;  and  yet  we  very 
often  do  not  see  how  it  is  to  be  escaped.  The 
real  escape,  I  think,  lies  here.  The  Christian  faith 
is  not  primarily  a  belief  in  Christian  truth,  but  a 
belief  in  Christ.  All  truth  which  we  believe,  we 
believe  in  and  because  of  Him.  We  know  that 
though  we  have  truly  taken  Him  for  our  Master, 
He  is  very  far  yet  from  having  told  us  all  that 
He  has  to  tell.  That  knowledge  does  not  de- 
crease our  satisfaction  in  believing  Him  ;  it  in- 
creases it ;  for  it  binds  us  to  Him  not  merely  by 
what  He  has  already  taught  us,  but  by  the  far 
greater  truth  which  He  is  keeping  for  us,  which 
He  will  give  us  in  His  good  time,  and  which  it  is 
a  pleasure  to  wait  for  now,  as  it  will  be  a  pleasure 
to  take  it  when  the  time  shall  come.  Now,  let  a 
believer  have  this  consciousness  about  his  faith  ; 
and  then,  as  he  stands  all  radiantly  exultant  or 
peacefully  blessed  in  the  truth  he  holds,  let  th^ 
unbeliever   come    up   to  him,  to   pluck   away  hisf 

X 


3o6    "  YOUR  JO  V  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU.''    [xiv. 

joy.  The  well-worn  taunt  is  brought  out  to  be 
used  once  more :  "  How  poor  your  knowledge 
is !  Answer  me  this,  and  this,  and  this,  and  this. 
What  pleasure  can  a  true  man  find  in  such  a 
vague,  limited,  unscientific  faith  as  yours  ?"  And 
then  the  tormentor  stands  and  looks  to  see  the 
faithful  face  grow  pale,  and  the  light  die  out  of 
the  believing  eye.  "  Now  certainly  I  have  taken 
his  joy  from  him,"  he  thinks.  Why  is  he 
disappointed  ?  Why  should  he  not  be,  when 
what  his  sceptical  brother  has  been  saying  to  the 
believer  is  only  what  the  believer  has  all  along 
been  saying  to  himself?  His  favourite  word  for 
years  has  been,  "  Now  I  know  in  part.  Only  then 
shall  I  know  as  I  am  known."  "  We  know  not 
yet  what  we  shall  be.  We  only  know  that  when 
He  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like  Him."  So  he 
has  always  told  to  himself  and  others  the  story 
of  his  faith  and  hope.  A  knowledge  consciously 
imperfect  held  in  the  embrace  of  a  perfect  nature 
perfectly  trusted — that  has  always  been  the 
condition  of  his  life  which  he  has  recognised, 
which  he  has  loved  to  state.  Why,  then,  should 
he  be  surprised  or  lose  his  peace  and  satisfaction 
when  another  hand  points  out  to  him  what  he  has 
known  and  gloried  in  so  long?  The  happiness 
does  not  fade  out  of  his  face.  In  the  embrace 
and    containment    of    his    faith    in    Christianity 


XIV.]    **YOURJOY NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU.       307 

within  his  faith  in  Christ  he  has  a  joy  which 
no  man  taketh  from  him. 

Always  it  is  the  surrounding  of  the  doctrinal 
faith  by  the  personal  faith  that  keeps  the  joy  of 
the  doctrinal  faith  safe  from  attack  or  theft. 
You  may  prove  to  me  that  this  or  that  doctrine 
which  I  have  held  for  true  is  not  true,  you  may 
show  me  that  my  creed  as  a  whole  is  very  far 
from  perfect, — my  faith,  my  religion  is  not  lost  by 
such  discoveries  any  more  than  my  love  for  my 
friend,  which  is  the  delight  and  inspiration  of  my 
life,  is  turned  to  hate  or  indifference  when  I 
come  to  see  that  there  are  rooms  in  his  house 
or  regions  in  his  character  which  I  never  have 
entered,  or  whose  furnishings  I  have  misunder- 
stood or  misremembered.  Of  knowledge  and 
faith  it  is  supremely  true,  as  Jesus  promised,  that 
when  He  comes  to  a  thinker  and  believer,  that 
thinker's  and  believer's  joy  is  full,  and  it  is  a  joy 
which  no  man  can  take  away  from  him. 

I  have  but  a  few  moments  left  to  follow 
our  subject — Christ's  promise — into  one  more 
region,  the  region  of  character,  the  central,  inmost 
region  of  all  life.  Can  a  man  have  such  joy  in 
his  own  character,  in  being  the  thing  he  is,  that 
no  other  man  can  take  his  joy  away  from  him  ? 
Just  as  soon  as  we  ask  ourselves  that  question, 
how  our  imperfections  and  sins  start  up  before  us  ! 


3o8    ^*YOUR  JOY  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU*'    [xiv. 

When  have  I  ever  stood  so  pure  and  clear  and 
irreproachable,  with  such  a  blameless  front,  that 
the  least  child,  lifting  his  baby  finger  and  pointing 
at  me  as  I  stood,  could  not  stir  my  sluggish  con- 
science and  make  my  soul  ashamed  ?  What 
idlest  chatterer  cannot  pluck  away  our  self-satis- 
faction, and  steal  the  last  trace  of  joy  in  our  own 
characters  ?  And  yet,  with  all  this  true,  it  is  not 
all  the  truth.  There  are  two  different  conceptions 
of  character,  one  of  which  looks  at  it  in  itself ; 
the  other  looks  at  it  as  it  is  involved  with  the 
powers  which  are  at  work  upon  it  to  make  it 
what  it  is  capable  of  being.  To  the  first  concep- 
tion, any  given  character  may  seem  contemptible 
and  mean  ;  to  the  other,  the  same  character  may 
seem  beautiful  and  glorious.  A  block  of  marble 
or  wood  lying  alone  upon  a  hill-top  may  be  ugly 
and  uninteresting.  The  same  block  of  wood  or 
marble  brought  into  a  sculptor's  workshop,  though 
his  hands  may  not  have  touched  it  yet,  or  may 
have  only  rudely  blocked  out  his  design,  may  be  a 
thing  to  reverence,  may  stir  our  imagination  and 
our  love.  And  if  we  may  go  farther,  and  attri- 
bute to  the  stone  or  marble  block  a  thought 
about  itself,  a  conception  of  its  own  value,  can 
we  not  think  that  as  it  lies  upon  the  hill-top  it 
may  be  ready  to  accept  everybody's  disesteem,  to 
believe  what  everybody  says  about  its  worthless- 


XIV.  ]   "  YO  UR  JO  Y  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YO  U. "    309 

ness  ;  but  when  it  comes  into  the  sculptor's  hands, 
it  may  gain  such  new  sense  of  its  capacity  under 
that  wise  and  loving  power  that  no  man's  sneer 
can  cloud  the  pleasure  that  it  feels  in  the  new 
revelation  and  hope  of  its  true  self  which,  under 
those  hands,  have  come  to  it  ?  Now  read  the  par- 
able. I  am  a  poor,  weak,  wicked  man  ;  I  know  it ; 
I  do  not  need  that  you  should  tell  me  of  it ;  but 
when  you  do  tell  me,  I  bow  my  head  and  know 
that  you  are  right.  Any  small  joy  in  myself 
which  I  have  been  able  to  conceive,  your  well- 
deserved  scorn  can  steal  from  me  in  an  instant. 
But  now  suppose  that  Christ  takes  me  into  His 
hands.  He  chooses  me.  With  that  indubitable  cer- 
tainty with  which  the  soul  accepts  His  will,  I 
know  that  He  has  chosen  me  that  He  may  make 
out  of  me  what  He  sees  that  I  may  be.  I  am  a 
poor  dull  block  still,  but  I  am  His.  Here  in  His 
workshop,  here  in  His  church  I  lie,  and  His  great 
hands  have  just  begun  to  shape  His  purpose  in 
me.  I  can  feel  it  there,  as  the  dull  stone  feels 
the  first  blocking  of  the  statue.  Is  not  the  whole 
thing  changed  ?  Now  there  is  a  joy  in  character 
which  is  not  present  consciousness  but  certain 
prophecy,  which  is  not  self-conceit  but  trust  in 
the  creative  hands  whose  power  I  feel  upon  me. 
Now  there  is  joy  as  deep  in  me  as  is  the  yet 
unwrought  design  of  the  dear  Lord  to  whom  my 


3IO    ^^YOURJOY NO  MAN  TAKETH FROM  YOU.''   [xiv. 

soul  is  given.  Now  the  happiness  of  the  heaven, 
wherein  alone  the  full  result  of  His  great  work  in 
me  shall  appear,  is  present  already  in  the  power 
of  His  love.  Now  let  the  shrewd  critic  come  and 
find  his  fault  with  me  ;  now  let  him  point  out 
all  the  stains  and  flaws  which  his  keen  eyes  can 
see.  I  am  not  scornful  of  his  criticism.  I  welcome 
it,  for  it  will  help  me.  But  it  no  longer  makes 
me  wretched.  I  am  in  Christ.  Oh,  the  great 
meaning  of  these  words !  In  hope  of  what  He 
shall  make  of  me,  of  what  He  is  making  of  me, 
my  joy  abides.  It  is  His  intention,  not  my  pre- 
sent condition,  upon  which  I  rest,  and  so  I  am 
not  wretched.  So  men  cannot  steal  my  joy  from 
me,  because  they  cannot  separate  me  from  Christ. 
So  He  fulfils  His  promise  :  **  I  will  see  you,  and 
your  joy  shall  be  full,  and  your  joy  no  man  taketh 
from  you." 

In  one  word,  then,  here  lies  the  limit  of  the 
power  of  our  brethren  over  our  lives.  All  that 
comes  from  ourselves,  and  has  its  home  in  our 
circumstances,  they  may  easily  invade.  All  that 
comes  from  Christ,  and  is  in  His  purpose  for  our 
characters,  they  cannot  touch. 

This  was  the  safety  of  the  joy  of  Jesus.  It 
all  came  from  God,  and  so  no  maliciousness  or 
carelessness  of  men  could  spoil  it. 

Oh,  my  dear  friends,  it  is  very  easy  to  let  men 


Siv.]    ^' YOUR  JOY  NO  MAN  TAKETH  FROM  YOU."    311 


take  from  us  all  that  they  can  take,  if  only  we 
have  in  us  that  of  which  it  is  utterly  beyond  their 
power  to  rob  us.  Let  them  take  our  time,  our 
comfort,  our  peace,  even  our  good  name,  if  only 
we  keep  our  trust  in  Christ,  and  our  certainty  of 
everlasting  growth  in  holiness  by  Him.  That 
no  man  can  take  away,  because  God  gave  it  to  us 
in  His  Son.  That  may  He  give  in  great  assur- 
since  to  us  all 


THE   END. 


Date  Due 


MftBidiiriuj 


BROOKS 
Sermons 
in  Eng, 


preached 
churches. 


;^  -  Hid.  Horn, 


